Through the World Door
by KittyCaterpillar
Summary: Obito decides to use his world-creating genjutsu a few years earlier, and ends up pulling people from alternate realities to his world. Now the dimension hoppers are struggling to figure out what's happening in a world that seems to have gone haywire.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One : Well, We've Gotta Start Somewhere!

"A ninja must always compensate for their surroundings. Let's say you're going on a mission where there's a high chance you could go from the bright outdoors to dark caves. Name some ways you could prepare for this." Iruka Umino scanned the room for any raised hands. _Really? _Nobody _wants to answer me? That's odd._ "I'm calling on someone in ten seconds." He took a moment to evaluate his students. Most of them were either staring listlessly ahead with a glazed-over look in their eyes, or staring bug-eyed up at the front. None of them were moving. _Wow, they're all half-asleep today, normally they're so energetic, and _someone_ would participa—_Iruka cut off his line of thought with a hand to his face. Then he slipped his fingers into the by-now-familiar handsign, "Kai!"

And then he was alone in the room.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura gasped and giggled all at once. "I can't believe we did that!" She snickered into Ami's shirt sleeve. The rough rocks of the Fourth Hokage's rocky head were scratching against her legs, but she hardly noticed.

"Pfft. I can. We're the number one unpredictable ninja class in the Hidden Leaf." The last part of the declaration held Ami's usual lofty pride.

_She's always so dignified._ Sakura sighed internally.

Then Ami burst into snicker-snorts and giggles too, and the juxtaposition of her thoughts and Ami's action sent her into a new round of laughter herself.

"Yah, well it's high past time we took all of you guys out. It just took us awhile to get the logistics right." A new voice chimed in. Sakura looked up to see Ino Yamanaka, ponytail flickering in the breeze. _One of the biggest reasons we're called the Unpredictable Class._ Sure, she and Ami were proud to _be _in their year, but they weren't the reason Iruka was going to go bald by twenty-five.

"We're really grateful!" Sakura piped up.

Ami voiced a more composed agreement of, "It was very thoughtful."

"Yeah," Isuru piped in from his perch on a hair spike above them, "this is awesome!"

"Glad to hear it!" A blue and orange and yellow blur landed with a _thump-ka!_ a few feet behind Ino. "We were almost worried we wouldn't be able to pull it off. The genjutsu part was pretty tricky. And with only a few weeks left til' we all graduate, it was a tight deadline."

Sakura smiled a bit nervously at Naruto. He was _the_ unpredictable element of their class, _the_ master originator of every scheme and _the_ most charismatic member of the Eight Future Clan Heads. She was always a little nervous talking to the Eight. It wasn't their fault, they were all very nice and friendly, but they were always so much _better_ than the rest of the class at everything. It was a bit intimidating.

"So how'd you pull it off?" Isuru shouted down.

"We got Itachi in on it!" Naruto's face lit up in a wicked grin.

"Yeah!" She could hear Sasuke Uchiha off in the distance. Man, that kid had good ears. "You wouldn't believe how hard it was convincing him to help us play hooky!"

A few hours later, as the sun was setting, the class finally quit playing on the monument and began the process of jumping away home. When the sun finally disappeared, Sakura turned to the two remaining students. "Sensei should be off her shift by now. You guys ready to go?"

Ami lifted a side of her mouth in her customary I-know-everything grin. "Of course. Isuru?" Her smirk dropped off face when no response was forthcoming. "Isuru!" She snapped, turning towards their napping classmate. "Up! Now!" she kicked him in the side.

"Aamii!" Isuru pulled himself into standing, "Why did you wake me up? I was dreaming about good food!" His speech was speeding up as he woke up. Soon they wouldn't be able to understand a word he said.

"We have to go! She's gonna be off her shift any minute now!" Ami yanked him by his wrist and started heading down the mountain. She slipped her arm companionably around Sakura's shoulder as she passed, and the three of them made their way down to the village.

Sakura's face crafted itself into a serene smile. Life was wonderful, after all.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, was counting backwards from ten. Again.

It wasn't working.

"Kushina, my beloved wife, please tell me why the cat is dead?" And in fact, Tora was _very_ dead. He wasn't even sure it could be called a dead cat. More like an incinerated pile of ash cat.

"Because that cat was an enemy menace, you know!" Kushina scowled and crossed her arms. "My students were completely justified."

_The amount of diplomatic maneuvering it's going to take to get us out of this without a large-scale war…_ "Kushina, do you have any idea what this is going to do?" He was going to pull all of his hair out.

"What are you so worried about Lord Hokage?" The chipper purple-haired student of Kushina's whose name he could never remember demanded. "We got a replacement cat."

"The Daimyo's wife will be able to tell the difference." He pointed out with his head buried in his hands. When did that happen? Five seconds ago he'd been stern and chin-up.

"Pfft. No way! She won't be able to tell." The brash and loud one named…something…pointed out with incredible volume.

"How do you figure?" he sighed staring at the jet black and _clearly not Tora _cat.

The smart one with glasses—how did he not know this one's name either? It must be because he spent all of his time trying to forget about them—chose that moment to pipe up, "We put a bow on it."

Kushina nodded proudly, "See Minato? I told you an all-girl team was a great idea! You know!"

Minato sighed, he felt a little off honestly, a bit clammy, and like his head was made of something lighter than the rest of his body.

"I'm here for my precious Tora!" An oddly sing-song voice called out.

_Oh no! She's here!_

"Here is your wonderful feline. Tora's absolutely beautiful by the way; you must take such good care of your lovely child." Purple-hair piped up with a ridiculous grin. He'd have to remember she was a suck-up. Oh, and he couldn't feel his hand. He decided just to wait for the inevitable downpour of political damage to come.

"Thank you! What a polite girl you are, what's your name?" Minato wasn't even paying attention anymore at this point. His whole body felt as light as his head now.

_The onslaught of paper work once she realizes it's not Tora._

"That's a wonderful name, dear! Thank you so much for finding my baby. Bye bye now!"

The door shut.

"Ha! It worked, see Lord Hokage!" That was the brash one.

"Of course it did." The smart one.

"Minato?" That was Kushina.

_Thwump._ That was the floor.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Did the Hokage just faint?" Mai jumped over to the indisposed village leader, her purple ponytail trying desperately to keep up with the head it was attached to.

"Yuup." Tomoyo clicked her tongue. "I would say he is absolutely unconscious."

Kushina rolled her eyes. "That's what he gets for staying awake three days in a row, you know." She crossed her arms.

At the seat next to where the Hokage normally sat (when he hadn't jumped up in terror at his wife's mission report) Jiraiya woke up to see his former student passed out, sprawled a bit haphazardly across the floor. He immediately looked to Kushina. "Again?" he grinned good naturedly and shook his head. "Thank you! Minato is such a workaholic. We've been in here for what feels like _days_!"

"You have been in here for days." Tomoyo pointed out.

Kaida let out a booming laugh, "No duh! Does Lord Hokage ever go home?" Then her eyes widened and her hands flew up to her mouth, "I mean, uh, of course he goes home a lot, I meant to ask if he ever…uh…"

Kushina bit her lip and then covered it up with a laugh and grin. "He's a dedicated Hokage! I just haven't been around as much lately to get him to take a break, that's all, you know!"

_Well, I _have _been around. Minato…not so much._ Her husband _was_ a dedicated Hokage, he was also dedicated to staying out of the house. Things had been…tense. For a while. For years. _For forever._

"Well, you all have the rest of the day off, I've gotta get Minato home." Kushina slung the Fourth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village over her shoulder. "I'll see you all later, you know!"

%%%%%%%%%%

Their sensei always worked late. She was dedicated. She was devoted. She was committed. She was determined…

She was obsessed.

The one-day-soon-to-be team of healers lounged around their customary spot in the hospital lobby. They were a one-day-soon-to-be team of healers whose team bonds had been forged in the boredom of waiting room magazines and bulletin boards. Often they were waiting for their sensei long after they'd done their homework, and long past their bed-time.

Ami had come up with a game where they had to pick a flower color, and then see how many people came in carrying that flower. Whoever picked the flower with the most of that color _lost_. Ami was weird like that.

Sakura had come up with a game where they had to see how many nurses they could help before sensei left her shift.

Isuru's was more of a team exercise, played against their record. It was how long they could entertain all the tense and extremely bored children in the lobby so parents could get some shut eye.

They were good students.

They waited patiently (relatively). They worked well as a team. They got along. And they didn't know it yet, but that would keep them alive.

_They're nothing like my team._ Rin mused, a small smile on her face as she watched from the doorway to the waiting room, where they laughed and talked. Takeout boxes were stacked neatly on the magazine table in the corner. Untouched and ready to be eaten by the four of them. _And that's why I love teaching them._

Really, it was time that had smoothed out their rough edges. _Our Hokage made the right decision all those years ago. _ It had been a revolutionary idea. Make them teams while they were in the academy. Simple, but effective. Don't just expect them to _know_ that teamwork was important, drill it into, and give them all a chance to show they could learn. Instead of wasting years of potential team-building time, use it to make cohesive units that knew how to cover each other's weaknesses and support each other's strengths. It had been inspired by the fate of her team.

It had turned the Hidden Leaf into the uncontested strongest Hidden Village.

It also meant her students by now knew her favorite food.

She walked over and snatched the takeout box she knew to be hers, "Ready?"

"Yah!" "Yes sensei!" "Of course."

"Good, because tonight we're taking a break from chakra control and medical ninjutsu." She smiled brightly, knowing full well she had their attention. "I'm showing you how to level an opponent."

Even Isuru let out of "_Squea!_" at that.

He'd totally deny it if you ever asked him though.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Obito Uchiha wanted to make a new world.

Unfortunately his genius plan of using a rock dead tailed beast carcass in the sky to brainwash everyone was a long time in coming.

The good news: he had a pet project on the side.

He could create worlds! With…genjutsu?

At least, he was pretty sure it was genjutsu…yah…he didn't really have an answer, so he was going with genjutsu. It was kind of his fall back. Change the world: genjutsu. Screw with the enemy: genjutsu. Brainwash the masses: genjutsu. He was not going to fix a method that wasn't broken.

The world, however, was very broken. He wanted to fix it, he did. It was just that there was something so appealing about the idea of creating a _new_ one.

That was going to take some experimentation, though.

As best as he could tell, the easiest method of creating a world was creating one you _wanted_, that you wished for. That way all the time you had spent thinking about that perfect reality would make you familiar with it.

Or something. He definitely knew what he was talking about.

So what did he wish for? No war, of course, but that was a bit intangible.

On the tangible side of things, _Rin_… and his team.

With a shrug and a _what could the harm be in trying?_ He focused with everything he had on _his team._ Mainly Rin, but the rest of them too.

And that's when the correct neighboring worlds started to feel a _tug._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two : Diverged Realities

When good ninja woke up, they never just got up.

They had a checklist.

What did they smell? What could they hear? What did they feel around them? What could they sense around them? Could their eyes detect any light, even closed?

Each of these were important clues to their surroundings, telling them if it was safe to get up, or if they should play possum for a while, to figure out their situation. Good ninja who wanted to live did all of this before daring to twitch a muscle or hitch their breath.

So the fact that Minato opened his eyes and sat up in bed the moment he awoke probably said something about him.

Immediately, Minato recognized his home. He turned his head towards the soft snoring of Kushina, and then flicked his eyes over to the window.

_Around midnight. I wonder, how long does that mean I slept?_ Minato counted himself lucky he didn't dream. At least not when he fell asleep dead tired, which he tried to do as often as possible. _Well, I'm not getting back to sleep anytime soon._ He quietly slipped out of bed, and crept his way to the squeaky-hinged closet, careful not to collect splinters from the choppy wood. _This is why genin are supposed to help builders._ Really, it was ridiculous. One would think that the moment a ninja was promoted to chunin; they instantaneously forgot which end to hold the hammer at. _I didn't forget. You definitely grip it at the funky shaped metal end. It's even shaped like a hand-hold to help you remember._

Come to think of it, hadn't he built the closet?

_Not important._

The door only creaked a little as he opened it. He cast a glance back at Kushina to ensure it hadn't woken her. _Sound asleep._

Good ninja also woke at the slightest sound of possible danger. He wondered briefly what it said about Kushina. _Maybe she's just too trusting._ For Kushina, it just wasn't possible that she didn't care.

He turned back to the closet, pulling out and donning a new set of attire.

"Minato?" he turned around to see his wife a few feet away.

"Sorry if I woke you." He shoved his arms into the sleeves of his jacket and with a jerk of his shoulders hoisted it on. "And sorry to, ah, sleep on the job earlier." He let his face take on the ghost of a sheepish grin.

Kushina gave a faded expression in kind, "Back to work?" She glanced up at the ceiling, and then looked back at him, "I'm not tired. Anything I can help with?"

He nodded, "Mission assignments will have piled up, and I imagine a few of our teams are going to need a bailout soon."

Kushina just smiled, "Lead the way."

So Minato did. He pulled open the window with its shoe-marked ledge (_Do we ever use the door? Do we even have a door?) _and leapt across the rooftop highway, towards the cratered side of the Hokage Mountain.

Minato avoided time at home whenever possible. But time with Kushina was something he sought.

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Team Soon-To-Be-Healers was perched quite happily on the garden rocks outside the hospital, slurping down their takeout. Sakura was aggressively swatting mosquitoes away from her sweet-smelling noodle concoction.

"Insects bring out your violent side, don't they Sakura?" Ami sucked in her sour vegetables and admired the literal cloud of insects attacking Sakura's meal.

"That has nothing to do with it! They're after my food!"

"Sakura, they're not after your food. They're after you." Rin pointed out as she whisked a piece of her…she couldn't actually tell what it was...into her mouth. She couldn't really feel her tongue anymore. _Perfect._ "But if you could channel this much anger and energy into fighting, you'd be unstoppable." Rin gulped down another bite.

"You really like your food spicy sensei!" Isuru shook his head, "I don't care how many times I see it. It's just too weird seeing someone inhale Akemi's Super Spicy Special without crying."

Rin dabbed at her face with her napkin, "Yes, I suppose I do." _It covers up the copper._ "Let me know when you're ready to get started." Three takeout boxes clattered into the trash bin. "Eager, are we?" She smiled at her students and started strolling towards their preferred training ground.

"We're gonna learn how to kick butt!" Isuru fist pumped into the air, "We're gonna be awesome!"

"I hope so." Sakura smiled.

"We don't even know what we're going to learn, Isuru." Ami put a hand on her hip, "So how can you possibly know how well we do at it?"

"Cause we're us." Isuru called back. Ami opened her mouth to retort, but in the end just shook her head with a satisfied scowl.

_Their_ training ground, as they referred to it, was essentially an open field. It was spotted with trees, with a notable clump in the center. Only about half of the trees were strong and big enough to support weight. It wasn't ideal for a training ground, since Leaf Ninja would spend most of their careers working with and around the giant trees of Konoha, but it was necessary, since they practiced so late. They needed the open field so the moonlight and streetlights could provide illumination.

When they finally graduated a few weeks from now, Rin knew she'd have to cut down on her shifts in the hospital. That was fine though, she'd just channel her extra time into her team. It would also let them pick a more environment-appropriate training ground, since she wouldn't work so late.

Rin motioned her team over to the center of the field. "Right, so." She gave her team a small smile, "The technique is called the Regiver—"

"The Regiver?" Isuru burst out, "What kind of a name is that? It's not like, Crashing Thunder Wave, or Super Fire Storm Smash?"

Ami snorted, "Those names are even stupider."

"The name of a jutsu isn't what's important. It's the jutsu itself." Rin turned to look at Isuru, "So if you'd let me finish," She paused for effect, "it's called the Regiver because it gives your enemy back everything they've dealt." Rin started pacing a little as she spoke, "An overview: It's a B-rank jutsu when completed. Designed to allow you to either take on the injuries of another or, and this is what gives it its name, give your injuries to another." She could see her students eyes light up with the possibility of re-gifting their wounds.

Then Sakura mentally went over the first part, "Wait, Sensei," her brow crinkled, "why would we want to take on an enemy's injuries?"

"Well," Rin stopped pacing and took a seat on the ground. Her students were quick to follow suit, "that aspect of the jutsu isn't intended for an enemy."

"An ally." Ami responded, her eyes widening in comprehension.

"Yes." Rin's expression turned serious, "Can anyone tell me why?"

Sakura was quick to catch on, "As medics, we know our own bodies the best, and because we aren't using up chakra transporting it to another person, it takes less."

"It also puts a ninja who's likely better at combat back in the fight." Isuru grinned.

"And could take a really dangerous injury and, by splitting the damage between two people, turns it into a minor injury. Or less serious anyway." Sakura rejoined.

"But," Ami had her chin balanced on her hand, her eyes narrowed in confusion, "pain is incredibly distracting, and since medical ninjutsu relies on concentration, wouldn't this be the exact opposite of helpful? I thought that was one of the reasons why, as medics, we've been focusing so much on learning to avoid getting hit."

"Very good point Ami." Rin smiled, "Which is why one of the most important steps in learning this technique is another technique, called Dissociation."

"That sounds like a psychological disorder." Ami said.

"It's that too," Rin sighed, "I swear, I really didn't pick these names."

"We believe you sensei." Isuru nodded, "If you had, they'd be called the Super Epic Payback Jutsu! And the…what's a dis association? Is that where people get together and insult people?"

Rin gave him a puzzled look, "No…the actual meaning of the word isn't important at the moment. The technique involves the translation of the sensation of pain into a different sensation, like mild temperature variations. That way you can focus, but still know what's going on in your body."

"Sounds complicated." Isuru said.

Rin nodded, "Oh, yes. It is. Regiver is actually comprised of multiple smaller techniques. When they're used in conjunction, _then_ it's Regiver."

"Wait, what are the different ones?" said Ami.

"Dissociation, we discussed. There's also Overlay, Osmosis, Input, Output and Ultimate Destruction. So they're all—"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Isuru held both hands forward and shook his head, "Ultimate Destroyer? That sounds awesome! How'd a cool name get in there?"

"You think it sounds cool?" Rin tilted her head, "I'm glad. It's the first part that you'll be learning." Her students started to cheer. "Yes," she nodded sagely, "it's a decidedly F-rank jutsu."

The cheers stopped immediately. "Sensei, I don't think F-rank is actually a thing." Ami pointed out.

"No," Rin stood up, "it wasn't until Ultimate Destroyer."

To her students' credit, they didn't complain until ten minutes in. Rin was proud.

"How much longer?! At this rate I'm gonna be Ultimately Destroyed by boredom!" Isuru shouted.

"Yah sensei, what's the deal?!" Ami joined in.

"Don't ask, do." Rin looked up from her place at the trunk of a tree, where she sat pouring over medical texts.

"This is so not a jutsu!" Ami said.

"Sensei, I agree. I'm afraid I don't understand how standing on one foot qualifies as a jutsu." said Sakura.

"F-ranked jutsu." Rin nodded like that explained everything and went back to reading.

"Give it up guys, sensei's in bookland." Ami sighed crossly and glared at her foot, "Though I'd love an explanation." Sakura nodded her agreement vigorously.

"Ack!" _Thump._

"And Isuru is down for the count." Ami rolled her eyes, "I can't believe you only lasted for ten minutes." She pointed a finger at her teammate, "Get back on your foot!"

"Never!" Isuru proceeded to do a handstand.

_Thump. Thuwmp._ The sound of giggles filled the clearing.

Rin sighed and put her books away. When they started getting a little loopy she knew it was time to call it a night. "All right, time to head home. We'll resume tomorrow. I expect you to practice this during class. I've talked to Iruka, so you can stand in the back while he lectures." She started herding the tired twelve-year-olds towards the road. "Let's get you home."

Rin walked them all home, since it was _late_. Most of the jonin did their teaching in the early morning, and then a couple hours before lunch the students started their formal lessons. The hospital needed Rin in the morning, so her students trained late and slept in.

After dropping off a sleepy Sakura to her mom, who was wide awake from working a guard shift—Rin prided herself on the fact that her students would be prepared for weird ninja hours—she leaped her way to the Hokage Tower. Her medical report tucked safely in her jacket pocket.

Rin arrived at the lit building and stopped at the front desk so the security ninja could verify her identity. She then made her way to the Hokage's office. Little shoots of light were peeking out from under the door. No doubt their leader was hard at work, even as late as it was.

Then she opened up the door and sighed.

_Hard at work? I _must_ be tired if I'm thinking like that._ "Lady Hokage." The fearless village leader of the Hidden Leaf jerked straight up in her chair to face Rin's unimpressed stare. "I have the report."

"Fantastic!" Kushina Uzumaki gestured for Rin to step forward, and she did so, handing over her disease predictions for the coming year. "Much appreciated. Vaccine-time is always such a pain, you know. I can't believe how many ninja are afraid of a little needle! They can stare death in the face, but one tiny piece of metal and they're all back to being children, you know!" When Rin's frustrated look didn't change, the Fifth Hokage slumped over on her desk, still holding Rin's gaze, "Oh, c'mon! I did all my boring paperwork, you know!"

Rin's face finally broke into a smile, "I'm just jealous is all. When we're done here, I'm going home."

Kushina stretched, reaching her hands to the ceiling. "Good idea! We'll be back at it in a few hours though, you know."

Rin laughed, "I'll take what I can. A tired medic is a poor medic."

Kushina filed away the report and the two walked out of the tower, making small talk until they reached the street and went their separate ways.

Sure, ninja could just leap out the window, but when you did that all the time, there was a certain luxury to indulging in taking the door.

But Rin was in a hurry, so she quickly took to the buildings. Despite what she'd told the Hokage, she still had one quick stop before reaching home. It was on the way anyway.

She approached the Memorial Stone, and quickly traced her finger over the familiar characters.

_Kakashi Hatake. Obito Uchiha. Minato Namikaze._

Rin didn't visit too often. It hurt, no matter how long ago it all was. _You never forget your genin team._

They were the ones you made all the mistakes with.

%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Die Leaf filth!" The rogue ninja threw…_an umbrella? Oh, okay then…_ into the air, "Senbon shower!"

_That was nice of him to tell us._ Minato threw one of his kunai over the senbon umbrella and hiraishined to it.

"Three-sixty-one no jutsu." His monotone voice fit well with the rather understated jutsu result. The umbrella rotted immediately and wisped away.

Down below Kushina had ripped the missing-nin in half with her chakra chains. He landed beside her.

"Thank you Lord Hokage!" a young ninja with brown hair called out, he was probably too young and unskilled to be on this mission. Then again, there wasn't anyone else to send. The ninja—_Why can't I ever remember people's names these days?_—bowed in his and Kushina's direction.

"Of course!" he shouted out. Kushina gave a nod, and then he felt another pull on a hiraishin seal. _Time to go._

%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Three-sixty-one no jutsu!"

Kushina missed the days when Minato had a stupid name for every attack. Sure, they were ridiculous, but at least they were interesting.

"Thank you Lord Hokage!"

"Of course!" She nodded at Nanashi, and finally took a moment since they'd arrived to figure out where they were at. Looked to be a—

_Vooooosh!_

"Warn me next time, you know!" and then Kushina had to leap away from the sudden barrage of kunai. "That goes for you too!" She yelled at the offending ninja. _Now what's going on!?_

She was pretty sure they were in some sort of cave now. This was infuriating for her, but even if she hadn't already known it, she would've been able to tell that Minato did this every day. Within seconds he'd targeted enemy, whoever they were, and disarmed them. She pulled anyone she could see wearing an enemy headband into the grip of her chakra chains, and Minato used "Five-thirty-seven no jutsu!" to finish them off.

And then another _Vooooosh!_ and Kushina had the sudden desire to punch her beloved spouse until she realized they were back in the mission assignment room.

The three ninja therein looked up from where they were frantically doing paperwork for about a split second before they were back to the grind. _Paperwork ninjas. I don't envy them._

"It's dawn." She turned to Minato, "I've got to meet my students, you going to be all right?"

He nodded, "Thank you for your help." He gave her a small smile, "Which teams are you working with today?"

"Eight, Six, Twenty, Nineteen, Four, Five and Two." She dusted off her by-now grimy pants, "Eleven and Thirteen are training for the chunin exams so that at least a few of our teams can make a good showing," she grimaced, "they'll be the only semi-impressive ones, I'm afraid. The other teams are open for assignments though."

Minato gave her a grateful smile before one of the Paperwork ninjas called him over to, "Stamp this, sign this, stamp that and tell me what you wrote here."

Kushina walked over to the door where she'd left her bag, full of teaching odds and ends, and almost ran into Jiraiya as he came through the door. "Kushina!" he grinned up at her, "Long day?"

She held open the door as he maneuvered his wheelchair in to the room, "At least it's day, not days."

Then she walked over to the window and jumped out. _Busy day today._ She was glad she'd decided to clump teams Six and Twenty into one session. She might just be able to work with Eleven and Thirteen to help them prepare for the upcoming exams.

She took a wistful moment to wonder if teaching would be more enjoyable if she wasn't teaching every genin team in all of the Hidden Leaf. It was hard to believe they'd once had the greatest population of all the Hidden Villages. _And now we've got what? Sixty active genin, forty active chunin, and fifteen active jonin?_ They couldn't even say they had a sanin anymore. Tsunade was dead, Orochimaru was dead(thankfully) and Jiraiya was paralyzed from the waist down, and unable to access his chakra.

She hoped that wherever Orochimaru was now, it was painful.

After years of his insane leadership, she could now honestly say that she was the only person left in the Hidden Leaf capable of teaching a genin team. Out of all the jonin and chunin, she was the only one left who could claim both mental soundness _and_ ability to carry out the duties of an active ninja.

That, and they couldn't spare a single other ninja. It really wasn't possible that they'd kept up with missions meant for…a _lot_ more ninja. _But Minato has made it possible._ Without his teleporting to take on the fights their now sub-par ninja couldn't win, they'd have imploded long ago.

As it was, they were barely clinging on.

**Author's note: Hi! I think I should probably clarify (though doing it like this feels a bit like cheating) there are three distinct worlds at play here. Regular canon world was the one with Obito. Then there's the one with Rin and her students where Kushina is the Hokage, and finally there's the one with Minato and Kushina. I know it's a little confusing at the moment, but I think I can clear most of it up next chapter. Also, I'm doing my best to add detail about where they are, so hopefully I'll get the hang of that a little more by next chapter. Thank you for reading and have a great day!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Now, We're Getting Somewhere.

"…_Rin." _

Rin snapped forward, the top of her blanket fell into her lap and her short brown hair flew past her face for a moment, before swinging down. She was breathless, and the dream-adrenaline still clung to her mind. The taste was back, she could feel the coating on her tongue. _Copper._ It didn't matter that it was in her head, she could still _taste_ it.

Rin got up and spat into her sink, and then took a swish of potent mint water. _It's still there; I'll give it one more try._ She again sipped the mint water, holding it a little longer this time before again spitting it into the porcelain basin. _A little better._

It would always be there of course. The taste of copper, that was. Spicy food could sometimes numb her tongue, but once the burn wore off it was back to the unnatural taste. It wasn't meant to go away.

Rin shook herself clear of lingering anxiety and the annoying tugging feeling in her chest, and got ready to start the day. She exited her apartment, and headed to the hospital.

_Still dark outside. Though the sun should be up in a few hours._ That thought gave her some joy, the sunrise was always pretty, when it rose over the village and cast honey rays over the buildings.

_I wonder if they'll figure out the purpose of the Ultimate Destroyer by the end of today._ She had to smile at the thought; her students were a bit like a second sunrise. _At the very least, it's going to be an interesting day for them._

%%%%%%%%%%%%

"What…exactly are you guys doing?" Naruto looked sideways towards Rin's students.

_This is going to be an interesting day._ Sakura thought glumly. "Training." She sighed. Ami, Isuru and she were awkwardly trying to remain standing without falling on one foot. _There had better be an amazing purpose to this jutsu._

"Oh, I see." Naruto scratched the back of his head, "I wonder if Iruka would let me stand too? Sitting all day is killin' me!"

_That was nice of him to say._ Sakura smiled warmly. _We probably look stupid trying to balance our paper and books on our knees._

The tables just didn't come up high enough, so the three of them were currently making a group effort to turn their unused knees into a table surface…it wasn't working.

"Hey Sasuke!" Naruto grabbed Sakura's textbook off her knee, "I bet I can balance this on my head the whole day!"

Said boy's head snapped up, "Is that a challenge!?"

_These two are crazy, how does Hinata deal with them?!_ Sakura made a reach for her textbook and nearly fell on her face, so she steadied herself against Naruto's chair. "Naruto, I um, I do need that textbook today."

"Perfect!" She caught the flash of a mischievous grin before he turned his head back around, "Just keep the book on my head, I'll be a table! That's made out of a head…or something. It'll be awesome, believe it!"

"Really? Thank you! I mean, it wouldn't be an inconvenience or anything?" Sakura hopped behind where her textbook now sat.

"I repeat: Is that a challenge!?" She looked to see Sasuke stomping over, apparently not happy at having his question ignored.

"Believe it!" Naruto spun his head to shout at Sasuke, and her textbook took a dive to the floor. "Ah! Sorry Sakura!"

"Perfect." Sasuke grinned and grabbed Ami's textbook, "Then we'll start at the same time." He took his customary seat on Naruto's left.

"Thaaaank _you_!" Ami bounced over, "I don't think I can balance two things at once."

_They're always near the back of the class so they can sneak out. I guess they're not doing it today._ Sakura hopped in place a little to ease the growing ache in her foot. _Ugh, I don't get to switch it for a few _hours_ yet._

"Ah…what are you all doing?" Sakura turned to see Hinata walking over. She titled her head in curiosity, sending strands of her long hair over her face.

"We're seeing who can balance the books the longest." Naruto nodded resolutely, "Oh! And it's to help these three too. They're doing some really difficult training."

Sakura waved awkwardly.

"Oh! I see." Hinata gave a small smile, closing her eyes, and then she continued talking in her quiet, ladylike voice. "I will win." She picked Isuru book up, and somehow managed to look dignified sitting down with it perfectly balanced on her head. "We'll start now."

Naruto and Sasuke were quick to follow suit.

The rest of the day passed by pretty uneventfully. Hinata, Naruto and Sasuke never let the books fall, and they agreed to resume their competition the next day.

_Though I really hope we don't have to do this tomorrow…_ Unfortunately, that was likely. They still hadn't figured out the purpose of Ultimate Destroyer. _And isn't that a stupid name._

With a groan Team-Soon-to-be-Healers set both feet on the ground and made their way to the hospital.

"Okay, what's up with this 'jutsu'?! I mean, what's the point?" Isuru twisted his face and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"I don't know, we need to figure out ASAP though, because I'm not going to survive another day of that!" Ami proclaimed indignantly.

"Hmm, let's get some takeout. We'll talk it over on the way." Sakura put her finger to her lips and stared at the ceiling, "I feel like there's a good chance we might have shirked the full exercise."

The three made their way to the door. "How do you mean?" Isuru asked.

"Well, if you think about it, Rin-sensei probably didn't count on anyone helping us out with the textbook. And Iruka-sensei told us there weren't any stools we could put them on, even though there probably are. My guess is Rin-sensei told him to tell us that."

"So what's it mean?" Ami scrunched up her face. "We were supposed to balance the textbook on our knee all day? What's the point? That'd be crazy hard to do!"

Sakura shot Isuru's pensive face a glance. He was being quiet, which meant… _He's almost got it. _"What would make it so difficult? I mean, you're right Ami, but… the answer has got to be in _why_."

"Multi-tasking!" Isuru said while waving his hands frantically, "We were supposed to practice multi-tasking! I mean, think about it, how hard would it be to balance on one foot, pay attention to Iruka-sensei and keep our textbook balanced on out knee? Rin-sensei even said that the technique involved doing multiple jutsu at once!"

"Of course!" Ami nodded excitedly, "I'll break the news to Hinata, Naruto and Sasuke tomorrow."

Sakura snickered, "They'll be fine. There are a lot of other things they can balance on their heads!"

After they'd basked in the glory of deducing the purpose of their annoying exercise they bought their respective noodle-concoctions and made for the hospital.

Unfortunately, the lobby was swamped and they still hadn't heard anything about their sensei getting off her shift, even though it was getting pretty late.

After her leg started cramping from standing on it (they were _so_ mastering this jutsu before Rin-sensei was off her shift), Sakura turned to her teammates. "I'm going to ask sensei when we should expect her to be done. If it's not for a while we might want to take a rest so we can stay up late." Isuru and Ami gave her a pained nod of approval, so she walked over to the desk. She nodded to the secretary, reaching over and picking up the schedule. The woman knew her well enough by now, and so just gave her a nod of greeting and consent.

_Hmm, looks like sensei should just be done with the surgery now, so I can probably find her in that wing._ She replaced the schedule and made her way to the surgery wing of the hospital.

A strange thud echoed down the hallway to in front of her.

_What's that sound?_

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Rin was tired, but not exhausted so she considered this a good day. She walked out of the surgery room towards where her students would be waiting. And she _knew_ they were waiting. She'd rigged her team with tracking seals. They weren't skilled enough to use them the other way around, but Rin could still use it to locate them in case of an emergency. Or whenever she was mildly concerned.

_I feel bad, I got off a lot later than I expected to tonight._ As Rin walked nearer to the lobby, she started to notice a weird tugging in her chest. _Did I pull a muscle?_ She didn't recall doing anything strenuous enough that day, but it was possible. And the symptoms were indications of that.

She pushed if from her mind and kept walking, but the tugging didn't cease, and it was starting to _hurt_.

_This isn't good._ She tried to take a calming breath, and found she couldn't breathe. Rin felt her knees gave out and suddenly she was staring at the floor. _I need to stay calm, and get aid._

She meant to shout, "Help! I need assistance!" and she could swear that she did, but she couldn't hear anything. She started banging the wall instead. _Stay calm. Stay calm._

Rin looked up at her vision started blurring to see Sakura running down the hallway towards her. _Oh, good. Sakura will get help._

She could make out the blurry shape of Sakura's mouth screaming, though she couldn't hear anything.

It was then she realized that her vision wasn't exactly blurring, it was smearing. She felt the faint sensation of Sakura gripping her arm.

"—elp! Help! We need help immediately!"

"Sakura?" she could hear them both now. She hoped her returned hearing was a good sign.

"Sensei!" Sakura's face was streaked in tears, but it was coming into focus.

"Sorry," Rin took a deep breath, she still felt insanely off, but her senses were coming back, "it's probably just exhaustion…" She trailed off when she realized that everything around her and Sakura was definitely smeared, all the shapes and colors were streaked and pulled. She knew what this was now, and she didn't need handsigns to break it. "Kai!"

Nothing happened. _What is this?!_

"Sensei?" Sakura's eyes widened as she looked around, "What's going on?!"

Rin could make out the forms of two people running towards them. "Stay back! Something's wrong with this area!" The figures showed no signs of stopping, and it was too streaked to make out who they were. Rin pulled Sakura towards her, to protect her from what could only be an unrevealed enemy ninja. _Likely one with an unbreakable genjutsu. This is bad._ "Sakura, stay close to me. No matter what, don't panic." Whatever technique their enemy was using, it seemed to have stabilized, because the pulling hadn't progressed.

They waited like that for a few heartbeats, and then Rin felt everything begin to tug again. Sakura twitched her arms forward, but stopped. She was a ninja, and knew better than to restrict Rin's movements by clinging. _Whoever this enemy is, they're good._ Rin activated a chakra scalpel in one hand, and placed the other on Sakura's shoulder, so that she could maneuver her out of the way should the need arise.

But the enemy—whoever they were—never struck. _Coward!_ The pain in Rin's chest intensified and bled to the rest of her limbs. She abandoned her fighting stance; she wasn't capable of putting up a fight against an enemy anymore. Rin could barely move at all. She clutched Sakura to her chest; putting her body between her student and any outside attack. Sakura was screaming and shaking. She was probably in just as much pain, but without Rin's tolerance. _I have to protect my students._ Ami and Isuru were in the hospital, they were in danger too.

The pain was being replaced by numbness, which was worse, because suddenly Rin couldn't tell where her limbs were. Sakura was smudging too now, and it looked like she was melting away. _What is this?!_

"Sakura!" her student seemed to ooze out of her hands, her palette of pink and red mixing together like sludge. _No! No, I can't lose her! _Rin wanted to grab what was left but she couldn't move at all now. "Sakura!"

And then the world seemed to flip upside down, and she was flat on her back in total darkness. _What is going on?!_ She could feel her limbs again, though they were stiff and sore and _everything_ hurt. That, and she couldn't breathe again. She fought through it. Whatever this was, she had precious people she had to protect. Rin forced herself to sit up, but her head hit against what felt like wood. _No matter._ She gave a chakra-enforced punch. The wood split and dirt rushed in. _I'm underground?_

She activated a simple earth jutsu and swam through the now uncompacted soil. Roughly six feet up, she hit air. _Thank Kami._ Rin could feel she was almost out of chakra. _How have I already reached the point of exhaustion?_ It was possible that the enemy-nin was using a chakra draining technique, but she hadn't felt a thing until she'd landed underground…somehow. _Could it be? A space-time jutsu like Hiraishin, but one that uses the victim's chakra instead of the user's? _It explained her change in location and her chakra drain.

She pulled herself the rest of the way out and lay down on the ground, panting from exertion. _This enemy is dangerous. I need to find my students _now.

Rin activated her tracking seals. At least she tried to, two of them—Isuru's and Ami's—weren't working. Sakura's was pulsing strongly though, and she could feel the direction. _Not too far away._ But why weren't Isuru's and Ami's responding? _So help me, if anything has happened to them…_ someone was going to die.

Before setting off, Rin took in her surroundings. _I should have done that first. _She knew she was tired when she made stupid mistakes like that. _I need to keep that in mind, and be twice as careful._

Surrounding her were what looked like a field of orderly flat stones. Everything was a bit blurry, but as her eyes started to sharpen and focus, Rin realized that she was in a graveyard.

_And I was undergrou—oh this sick shmuck!_ Whoever the enemy was; he had a twisted sense of humor.

Rin cast her eyes to the headstone she'd emerged by, and her eyes widened. This time she did do the handseals as she shouted, "Kai!"

But the stone was still engraved with _Rin Nohara._

**Author's Note: Hi again! Next chapter will be the world with Minato and Kushina. I originally intended to do both worlds with this one, but it ran a little long and I'd reached what I felt was a good stopping point. Anywho, thanks for reading a have a wonderful day!**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four : Converging Realities

Kushina kicked hard off the tree, giving her much-needed distance from the dangerous steam swirling around the trunk.

"Sukima! Hosei! You need to be pressuring me closer to Ayame! My chakra chains don't work on her Smoke Transformation!"

To their credit, her students quickly started pressing her back in Ayame's direction. _They're getting the hang of teamwork. _She was proud of them; they'd never had a solid education in the ninja arts. _Of course, Team Six on their own are still incredibly easy to beat._

They had amazing teamwork, unfortunately that couldn't completely compensate for spotty skills.

"Shibire, now!" A literal barrage of kunai flew at and around her.

_On the other hand, Team Six and Team Twenty _together_ are annoyingly effective._ Kushina used the Replacement Technique to switch herself with Sukima. "Remember not to let your teammates get placed in danger!" It was a little disappointing; she'd already escaped kunai barrages like that before. _Should've learned by now. _She thought with a singsong tone.

With a curse, Shibire pulled his arm back, and the kunai stopped a few inches from Sukima's terrified face. _He tied them with ninja wire? Smart!_

Team Twenty's members were around fourteen years old, and had roughly two years experience on Team Six. Right now, Shibire, Tanzo and Minoji were hindered a bit by their younger counterparts.

_And that's why they're training together._ Konoha ninja watched out for their weaker members. They needed all the ninja they had.

"Good job! Now how will you compensate for this?!" Kushina grabbed Hosei's shoulders and pivoted herself behind him, leveling a kunai at his throat.

The genin froze.

"I want you to seriously consider this. If an enemy ninja takes one of your team hostage, do you choose to protect your teammate? Or protect the mission, knowing that surrender may not guarantee their life, but that continuing their mission means that comrade's death?"

The genin unfroze.

"Third option!" A few of them called out. Kushina looked down to see that she was now holding her weapon to Ayame's throat.

"Hi sensei!" The girl gave Kushina a gleeful grin before transforming into smoke. Kushina tried jump away, but the girl swirled behind her, materializing her hand, a kunai now held to Kushina's throat. "This worked out pretty nicely!"

Kushina let out a laugh, and Replaced herself with Sukima. _I let my guard down while lecturing and they took advantage of it. Well done. _"I'm proud of all you guys, you know!" The genin soaked up the praise for a moment with beaming faces. _Creativity is the only advantage they're going to have over other villages._ It was good they had it because it was also very hard to teach. "Team Twenty, you made sure to account for less experienced allies. That was a smart move Shibire, keeping your kunai in your control. Team Six, I'm impressed with your creativity, like switching the captured member to fit your advantage. However—and this is my fault—we need to work on your defenses. Disrupting your chakra so your enemy can't switch with you, and learning how to keep an enemy from getting behind you are important skills. But overall, great job, you know!"

After going over a few more pointers and praises for them, the group sat down to lunch.

Team Six was one of Kushina's favorites to eat with, because Ayame always brought enough ramen to sell to all of them. And it was delicious. _Didn't her family own a ramen shop before everything went insane?_

"So," Kushina looked to Team Twenty, "I forget, are you the team teaching today? Or is that Eight?" It was always hard to remember which genin team was teaching the academy on what day.

Minoji shook his head, "We were today, but we switched with them 'cause they had a mission."

"So you're free?" Kushina waited for someone on Twenty to nod. She turned to Six. "How about you guys?" They all gave a confirmation between noodles. "Awesome! I was thinking maybe we could do a giant group spar with Eleven and Thirteen, you know?! It'll help 'em in the second round." She slurped her noodles.

"Sounds like fun!" Ayame said. Kushina smiled as she got agreement all around.

"Great, so after lunch—"

"Kushina!" Kushina spun around to see Inaho running towards her with a terrified expression, "You have to come quick! Something's wrong with the Hokage!"

%%%%%%%%%%%%

"I fail to see why my indigestion is cause for village-wide emergency." Minato huffed. "We really didn't need to bother Kushina. I'm not exactly on death's door." He gave Shizune a mild glare from where he lay on one of the mission assignment's room cots. _This is starting to get ridiculous. Yesterday I pass out, and today I'm incapacitated from _food.

"Lord Hokage," Shizune glared right back at him, "according to every individual in this room, you doubled over clutching your chest and then _became transparent_ for ten seconds. As the only medic you've got, I can assure you that you _don't_ have indigestion."

"Well that's a relief." Minato began to sit up, "That means I can go back to work."

"It means what you've got is way worse!" Shizune pushed the Hokage back to lying down. "So much as try to sit up and Kushina will know!"

"I'll know what?!" Minato looked up to see Kushina wide-eyed in the window sill above the cot.

Minato began, "Well—"

"He was see-through." Shizune cut in. Kushina looked at her for a while, and then looked down at Minato.

"I thought you were dying, you know."

"So did everyone else." Minato sighed, "Sorry to trouble you."

"What's the jutsu name?" Kushina asked, and then gave him a frustrated look, "Or number."

"You see, it wasn't exactly a jutsu…"

"I'll clarify," Shizune rested her face in her hand, "Lord Hokage doubled over in chest pain, and then became see-through. And it wasn't intentional nor a side-effect of any jutsu of his."

Kushina glared down at him, "So you didn't think you disappearing was a good reason to call me in?!"

"I'm not disappearing. I just suffered from a _temporary_ lack of opaqueness." Minato said seriously.

Kushina gaped at him, and then gave a close-eyed smile. Minato thought he was in the clear until she brought her fist level with her head, "Minato. You will do as Shizune says, or I will be very _upset._ You know."

_Well played Shizune, well played._ He closed his eyes and laid his head back, "As you wish. But if someone flares distress—"

"You have permission to Hiraishin with someone else and _they'll_ do the fighting." Shizune rolled her eyes, "Agreed?"

Minato just gave a resigned nod.

Kushina was still in the window sill, and he could hear her chatting with Shizune, trying to figure out what could be going on. _I have to wonder, could it be some kind of genjutsu?_

And then he felt it again, the painful _jerk_ on his chest. He opened his eyes to see everything in his vision pin wheeling. Like someone had smeared all the colors. He couldn't move and he couldn't feel his limbs. _This has to be genjutsu!_

"Minato?" Kushina's face suddenly entered his vision, normal and unwarped. He could feel her hands clutching his arms.

"Kushina, this—" and then her face _oozed_, her red hair blurring together with her face, "Kushina!" _She can't be…_

And then it was dark and the air wouldn't let him breathe. _What—?_ He tried to sit up and smacked his head on wood. Minato wanted to Hiraishin away, but his tags were in the wrong places and they felt weak, he didn't trust them.

_Fine then._ He drew chakra to his palm, "Rasengan!" He shot his hand forward, splintering the wood and through an unbelievable amount of dirt before he popped up in cold air.

Minato jumped up out of the soil and blinked to clear his vision. _Is this…?_ The flat stones around him…he recognized the location as Konoha's old graveyard, before it was destroyed.

The dirt a few feet away shot into the air, and a familiar set of chakra chains preceded his wife's red hair.

"What the hell?! You know!"

"Kushina." He called softly.

"Minato, what is this?" She blinked her eyes and limped towards him. He could sympathize, none of limbs seemed to be working very well, and his vision was still pretty awful.

They seemed to be thinking on the same lines because two shouts of "Kai!" filled the silent plain of graves.

"Genjutsu's out." Kushina said with a grimace, "Unless someone's copied Itachi."

Minato rolled his head back a little. _Ugh, my neck is stiff._ "Possible. You'd think they'd have some purpose to it. They aren't trying to make us believe this is reality," he gestured around them, "this graveyard's been in ruins for years now."

Kushina wrinkled her nose, "It's not very effective psychological torture either, you know."

The two continued to stretch and try to convince their joints to loosen up. "Hmm, well…for now let's not discount the possibility of genjutsu, but if this lasts for longer than a few days, we'll have to take it off the table."

Kushina gave him a confused look, "Well if it's not genjutsu, then what?"

Minato twisted his mouth to the side in thought, "Possibly some kind of space-time ninjutsu."

"Like Hiraishin?"

"Probably." He paused and looked around, "But why would they reconstruct the graveyard? That's a lot of effort to put in…"

Kushina shrugged and placed her hand on his shoulder. He grabbed it. They had to be ready for an attack, but Minato wished he could wrap his arms around her right now, just to prove she wouldn't ooze away again. _What was that?_ For a terrifying moment he'd wondered if she was dead. He'd had to wonder if she was alive or not for far longer before, but that had been years ago, and Minato had never wanted to experience that terror again.

He wished he could see better, everything was still blurry and he couldn't quite focus his vision.

His hearing was fine though, and he nearly jumped five feet in the air when he heard ground quietly shifting.

Minato and Kushina dropped flat, and he cast a simple genjutsu to hide their presence. It wouldn't hold up for long, or against a skilled ninja. _Unless they're as out of it as we are, _he amended.

He watched the blurry figure crawl out and stand up. Then it just stood still for a few moments, before looking around. The…woman? The woman jumped a bit when her eyes met the gravestone in front of her, and she shouted "Kai!"

_Well, there goes our cover._ Except that she didn't look in their direction, by the outline he could see of her head, it seemed her eyes were still firmly planted on the headstone.

Curious, Minato looked at the headstone where he'd popped up, and his eyes widened.

_Well…this is unexpected._

%%%%%%%%%%

"Sakura! Sakura get up or you'll be late!"

Sakura blearily blinked her eyes and rolled out of bed. _That was a weird dream…how'd I get home?_ She wondered if she'd fallen asleep in the hospital and Rin just took her home. _Oh well._ It was too bad they hadn't gotten any training in, but they'd make up for it tonight.

She walked to her closet and switched into her shorts and…dress? _My shirt's so long! How'd it get all stretched out?_

With a shake of her head she grabbed her brush off her dresser to quickly run through her hair and…_Why is my _hair_ so long?! Ugh…_ Had Ami and Isuru pranked her while she was sleeping? _Doesn't really seem like them…_ But they might've just been tired and bored and decided that she wouldn't mind them trying out a hair-lengthening jutsu…if that was even a thing.

_I'll just ask them when I see them._ She jerked her comb through an angry snarl. At this rate, it'd be quicker to just shuck off her long hair with a kunai than to brush it out, but if she did it would look _weird_. Cutting hair was not a talent of hers. _I'll have to ask Rin-sensei to hack it off for me. _Sakura decided just let her hair go snarly. She was just not in the mood to deal with it at the moment. Plus, she felt a little woozy.

With that, Sakura clambered down the stairs. She snatched a rice ball and jogged her way out the door, "Bye mom! Bye dad!" She called over her shoulder. When she got outside, Sakura did a double-take at the sky.

_It's early…_ The academy didn't start until ten, since most teams trained with their sensei in the morning. Maybe they were having an early-start day? _That's a thing…right?_

Sakura shrugged it off. She was starting to feel downright nauseous. _Could possibly be a side-effect of rapidly growing hair, _Sakura catalogued mentally. She'd have to investigate that further, but for now she just wanted to focus on keeping her rice ball down.

"Good morning _Sakura_." Sakura looked up to see Ino.

_We're on the same route?_ It made sense they'd never seen each other before. Sakura trained late and slept in a little later; Ino trained early and went to sleep early. "Good morning Ino." She said quietly with a small smile.

"You look positively green Forehead." Ino…sneered? Couldn't be. Ino didn't sneer at people.

_I_ must_ be sick if I'm hallucinating._ She could go home…but she was starting to feel a little better. "I don't feel the best." Sakura confessed. _Hey, wait, did she call me forehead?_ Maybe it was a new slang term or something…like instead of: "Hey guys!" it was: "Hey foreheads!"

It sounded stupid, but Sakura was in no mood to judge.

"No kidding…you sound awful. You're not going to stay home?" Ino's voice held what sounded like genuine concern.

_She's so nice._ "Nah, it'll get better." She turned to her classmate and smiled as best as she could manage. The nausea _was_ wearing off. "But thanks for your concern."

Ino gave her a confused look, "Are you sure you're alright, Forehead?"

Sakura was about to ask her about the whole 'forehead' thing, but she noticed they were at the Academy already, so she just gave a smile, a nod and a wave and clambered towards the back row of seats. _I'll have to tell Ami and Isuru I just can't practice standing on one foot today._ She wondered if she would have to explain it to Hinata, Sasuke or Naruto, since they were having their little competition, but it looked like they were all sitting far away from each other. _That never happens, did they have a fight?_

No, it wasn't that. Something was wrong. Things had been off all morning. _My shirt is a dress, my hair is long, Ino was weird and called me 'forehead', _she ticked off the list to keep track, _Naruto, Sasuke and Hinata are not interacting, and the Academy seems to be starting a couple hours earlier._

That meant that likely she hadn't been dreaming last night and she and her sensei were caught in an enemy's genjutsu.

Sakura counted herself lucky that Rin had drilled them in breaking genjutsu until they could do it without handsigns or shouting, so she disrupted her chakra flow, but found nothing had changed.

_Not genjutsu? Then what…?_ Was she just imagining things? It was possible; there _was_ an explanation for everything. Not perfect explanations but they were there. _At this point it's better to just be cautious._ There was a chance this _was_ a genjutsu, and it was powerful enough that she needed to use actual handsigns. _For now, I just need to go along with everything; I can't alert the possible genjutsu caster that I'm aware._ And when she got a chance, she would properly try to break the genjutsu. Assuming there was actually anything going on.

Great, now she wasn't nauseous anymore, but she had a headache.

"Okay class, we're starting!" She could hear Iruka's voice try to quiet his students.

Rubbing her forehead—that word would forever sound stupid to her now—she cast a look around the classroom. _So many people are missing!_

Where was Ami? Isuru? Heck, it didn't look like Riichi's students—Nanashi, Tobio and Fuki—were here either. They sometimes trained with them, since they were the only other team who practiced at night.

_No, wait! There's Tobio!_ He was talking to some other kids. _But that's still four people who aren't here, and my teammates are two of them!_

Sakura slumped in her seat and hugged herself. _I'm scared, it's like the world's gone haywire!_

**Author's Note: Hiya! So next chapter I'll actually clear things up a bit I think…I was going to implement the world change distinctions this chapter, but since the change happened within the narrative, it didn't make a lot of sense to do so. Also, I'm trying to avoid too many OC's, so all the ninja that Kushina refers to are actually characters that I spent like an hour looking for. -.- I don't know what I was thinking... Anyway! Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day!**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five : No One Else Has An Answer Either!

Sakura spent the next few hours sitting through what was possibly _the_ most boring lecture _ever_. But she was also terrified. So it was more of an excruciating lecture instead of just being dull.

_We covered this yesterday!_ This certainly led credence to her trapped-in-a-really-strong genjutsu theory. Whoever this enemy was, they were constructing a world based on observations. _That also explains why everyone's acting different._ And by different she meant like morons.

_Is Naruto seriously making spit-balls?_ He was _never_ so half-assed at pranks. He'd turned their school into a water park one time. The caster of this genjutsu must have been some incompetent idiot.

Actually, she could kind of picture some dumb enemy in their thirties trying to figure out "kids' slang these days" and somehow concluding that the word of the generation was "forehead". The oddity of the mental scenario and her tension made Sakura start to giggle.

"Something funny?" She looked up to see Iruka giving her a surprised expression.

Rin-sensei had once told her, "_When you don't want to answer a question, ask a question."_

So she did. "Funny?" She titled her head.

"You were laughing." Iruka's face looked definitively disappointed.

Hadn't Hinata been asked this question once in class? She'd had a funny answer too…"Y-yes, I had a tickle in my throat. It…it really wasn't very funny." A few students snickered. _Ugh, I sounded stupid._ She _hated_ talking in front of lots of people. _Even if it's a genjutsu._

"Well, since I'm sure you were paying attention, maybe you'd like to tell me: If you're on a mission where there's a high chance you could go from the bright outdoors to dark caves. What are some ways you could prepare for this?"

"Uh…b-bring a lot of glowsticks…l-learn a jutsu that produces a lot of light, cover up one eye so it's always ready for the dark…"

"That's enough, thank you." Iruka nodded and returned to his lecture.

_I shouldn't have slipped up._ She couldn't let the enemy know that she knew she was in a genjutsu, or he could cause problems before she broke it. _Maybe I should just break it now?_ _…But, if I can't break it…_

It could be like Itachi's Tsukuyomi.Then she wouldn't be able to break it, and she'd be stuck in a genjutsu where the caster knew she was aware. _Which means the end of the charade._

At this point, that was the only real explanation left.

There was an incredibly tiny chance it could be some insanely elaborate set-up where everyone was in a henge. The only purpose of that would be if they were trying to fool Rin, and figured one real person—herself—would make the illusion more believable. _That would mean the enemy managed to take us out of Konoha without being stopped. _And they'd chosen that instead of just using her as incentive to get Rin to talk.

_Really_ tiny odds.

If it was normal genjutsu Rin or some other ninja would have broken it by now, so it had to manipulate time. _I need to keep up the appearance of believing nothing's wrong, if it doesn't break after a few days, then I'll risk alerting the caster._ Or, she supposed, she could try to enter a situation where she'd have reason to try to break a genjutsu. Then it wouldn't look weird…

"Sakura?"

She looked up to see an empty room and Iruka giving her a concerned look. Everyone else had vacated for lunch.

"Sorry, I'm a little out of it today!" She rubbed the back of her head, "Have a nice lunch." She scampered out of the classroom. _I didn't bring a lunch…oh well._ She should probably take this time to search for Rin-sensei and Ami and Isuru. _Differences in their personalities will tell me more about how much the caster knows._

Whatever was going on, Sakura was getting to the bottom of it.

%%%%%%%%%%

Whatever it was that was going on; Minato was in over his head.

"Uh, Kushina." He nudged his wife and gestured to his headstone. She craned her head to see around his spiky hair and her eyes went wide.

"Minato, I just want you to know, I'll always love you. Death do us part can bite my ass."

He shot her a half-lidded look of disbelief, "Kushina…I'm not dead."

She shook her head, pretending she hadn't heard him, "Even if you deceived me, and pretended that you were alive…"

"Kushina…" He jerked his head in the direction of where she'd popped up.

She turned to it and he heard a little gasp, "Minato!"

_Maybe she'll start taking this seriously…_

"It seems that I too, have lied. But now we'll be together forever, you know!"

Minato felt his eye start to twitch and he sat up in frustration, "Kushina! Neither of us is dead!"

Kushina moved to kneel on her knees and placed her hands on his shoulders. Her expression looked serious, "Minato, denial is the first step of acceptance."

He was about to respond when he realized they'd probably given themselves away to the figure at the other grave. _Nope. She's still out of it._ Actually, now she was on her knees shaking, and he had the feeling she was about to cry.

Minato turned back to face his wife, "Uh…"

She rolled her eyes, "I've got this."

Good ninja didn't randomly walk up and start comforting a potential enemy. But, Minato decided that just this once; he wouldn't wonder what this said about them.

Minato dropped the genjutsu and Kushina and he stood up.

"Hey!" Kushina waved and purposely made her steps loud as she walked towards the woman, "You just crawl out of a grave too?"

The woman's head snapped up and she made what looked like an attempt to jump away, but her muscles didn't quite obey her, so instead she wound up stumbling back.

"We're having trouble with that too!" Kushina gave a sun-watt grin, "Looks like we've all got a lot in common, you know!" Kushina kept walking forward with her hands held up placatingly, and Minato wasn't too far behind.

"L-Lady Hokage?!" The woman sputtered out.

"Uh, nooo…" Kushina dropped her hands.

But by now, Minato was close enough to start making out the face, even with his blurry vision.

"Minato-sensei?!" "Rin?!"

"Hah! I _knew_ we were dead you know!"

%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura's plan changed once she walked outside the Academy and onto the street. It changed because she saw the Hokage monument, and her enemy couldn't _possibly_ be that stupid.

Everyone knew the Hidden Leaf had had _five_ Hokages, and their most recent one was extremely memorable.

Extremely. You know.

Sakura stared slaw-jawed at the missing head before darting down the nearest alleyway. _Forget the caster knowing I know._ She started forming the handseals. _They don't care I know if they're making changes like _that.

"Kai!" She peeked out from the alley, and then swung her head back in. "Kai!" She took a look, "Kai! Kai! Kai, kai, kai, kai, _KAI!_" Nothing was changing. Sakura hated the only other alternative to breaking a genjutsu. She dug through one of the alley's trashcans until she found a glass bottle. After cracking it along the can's lid, she drove a shard into her leg. "Oow owowowoowow." _Not sure this works for Tsukuyomi-type genjutsu. But it's worth a shot. _Anything_ is worth a shot at this point, really._ She glanced towards the Monument. It was still missing the Fifth's head.

With a grimace, Sakura slid down the alley's wall, panting from stress and pain, and started healing her leg. Glass probably hadn't been the greatest idea. It would take her a little while to coax the glass flakes out of her leg, but she could still do it. While she healed, her mind panicked. This last test had shown a concerning trend.

The world hadn't suddenly revealed itself to be a genjutsu, so the caster clearly didn't care, but if no enemy was trying to convince her it was real, what could they hope to gain?!

_It doesn't make any sense!_ Not that putting her into a genjutsu in the first place really made any sense, she didn't _know_ anything that the enemy couldn't have found out much easier another way…but other than genjutsu, she didn't know what else could explain what was going on.

_Think Sakura! _She tried to get her breathing under control. _What do I do?!_

She'd done her part of the equation; she'd noticed and remembered the facts. Sakura had a numbered list in her head for crying out loud! Deducing was _Isuru's _job and deciding what to do was _Ami's_ job.

_What would they say?!_

And then she could almost hear Rin say, "_Remember, if you can't uncover what something is, try to figure out what it _isn't. _If it doesn't get you closer to the truth, it will at least take you further from the lie._" Rin had worked with them tirelessly to make sure that they could handle the unexpected, Sakura just had to put that training to use. That and keep calm, which would be infinitely more difficult.

Sakura finished healing her leg, and hugged her knees to her chest. _What do I know?_ She knew that her understanding of how her world should be, and how the world currently was, were different.

She knew it likely wasn't genjutsu at this point, though she couldn't entirely rule that out. _But if this world doesn't give in a few days, I'm taking it off the table._ For now however, she lost nothing by assuming that this _wasn't_ genjutsu.

Which meant this was _reality._ Somehow. If it was, that left two possibilities that she could think of. One: The crazy henge scenario. _No, I can rule that out for the same reason as the genjutsu._ Then there was one left. She was crazy.

At that point though, all was lost anyway, so considering it didn't help her.

That settled it then. She didn't know why or how this was reality, but she knew it _was._

Which meant that she had a dilemma approaching. Sakura only had a little bit of time left before lunch ended. She'd either have to skip class or go back. If she skipped, it could draw attention she didn't want, but going back was just as potentially dangerous. Her understanding of the world was shifted, which meant that she could be under suspicion as being an enemy spy, who'd replaced Sakura Haruno.

_I don't even know what the other Sakura's personality is._ She'd have to figure it out from how people reacted to her. The problem with that was that Rin hadn't yet covered reverse-constructing someone's personality with them.

_I'm dead._

%%%%%%%%%%

"Lady Hokage…how is Minato-sensei here? This doesn't look like Edo-Tensei!"

"I'm not Hokage! He is you know!" she jerked her thumb at Minato, "And how are you here? I thought you were dead you know!" Kushina turned to Minato's shocked expression, "And apparently so did he."

"I'm dead? But, Lady Hokage what do you mean you're not Hokage?"

"I'm not you know! That's his paperwork!"

Minato blinked and shook his head to clear it, "This isn't getting us anywhere." He gestured to Rin, "Please, Rin. Tell me how you believe I died." _A henge. This is almost certainly an enemy henged to look like her. I need to figure out their purpose._ And then he was going to make their enemy very sorry they'd ever tried to shame his student's memory.

The impostor gave him a concerned look, and nodded, "You used the Reaper Death Seal to seal away the Nine Tailed Fox."

"Why? The Nine Tails is sealed away already, you know."

"How can you not remember the attack…?" The woman's eyes snapped wide, and this time she did manage to flip back. "I don't know who you are, but you will regret using our Hokages' likenesses in this way!"

Minato had to acknowledge that it was a smart enemy tactic, turning around the accusation.

Didn't mean it was going to work.

"What?! You're the fake!" Kushina's chakra chains shot forwards towards the impostor-Rin who dodged narrowly. And she then shot towards Kushina with reckless abandon.

Minato Hiraishined to Kushina's side just as the impostor got there. _Better not waste chakra on a jutsu._

He flung a kunai and was surprised when the woman didn't dodge. In fact, the blade landed square in her gut. _Nothing dispelled, that's not a henge!_ He meant to grab Kushina and jump back to reassess whether or not this was an enemy, but his opponent rapidly flicked through a series of handsigns, and followed it up by stepping on his foot of all things.

"Regiver no jutsu!" The woman shouted. Minato wasn't sure what the jutsu had done until he felt a kunai in his gut and looked down to see an kunai wound with no kunai in it. He looked up into a pair of wide eyes. "You're not a henge?"

%%%%%%%%%

Eventually, Sakura decided she should head back to class. Skipping meant people would have a stronger reason to ask questions. _If I have to justify my behavior, I can always say I didn't sleep well last night._ It was a flimsy excuse, but her distraction was explainable by sleep-deprivation.

With a groan of frustration, Sakura stood up and started walking back to class. She had about fifteen minutes to hit the books and give herself a crash-course on history.

When Sakura opened the classroom door, she was surprised to see Sasuke sitting glumly at his desk. _Weird, shouldn't he be eating with his friends?_ And then she remembered that the world had lost its marbles and just accepted it. Sakura pulled out some reading materials and sat down at the spot she'd chosen near the back of the room.

Medic-nin often had to remember an insane amount of material, so Rin had taught their team a little trick to absorb knowledge.

"_Don't forget, you're absorbing it. You aren't _learning _it. That still has to be done the old-fashioned way."_

Sakura pulled out a pen. _Not as good as a brush, but I can make do._ She drew the little symbols on her palm. _Nanashi is so much better at this._ Hers wasn't very efficient, since her lines were pretty imprecise, but Nanashi was a crazy-good artist, and his worked even better than Rin's.

Biting her lip in concentration, Sakura activated the seal, and started running her hand down the pages of the text as quick as she could. After the first two minutes, she realized that history was exactly the same. She flicked through the text, scanning for differences. Sakura couldn't find a single one until the battle of Kannabi Bridge. It mentioned one of the Fourth's genin dying, which she knew didn't happen until later. _Right, I'll get the information after this point._

With a much smaller portion of text to absorb, Sakura managed to get it all just as class started. _Phew._

"Okay, everyone settle down!" Iruka called up front.

It was weird that there was so little coverage of the past twelve years. She was used to textbooks essentially dominated by that period of time. The Fifth Hokage had made an incredible amount of reforms and changes. Sakura flicked some of her chakra into the seal on her palm, and began reading through her mental "scans" for information. _The Fourth still died, but Lady Hokage never became the Fifth?_ It looked like instead, the Third had redonned the hat. _That makes no sense._

So had any of the Fifth's reforms actually happened? If not, it explained why the Academy was starting early. Her parents had told her about the time before the Fifth, when there were no jonin sensei's in the Academy, and therefore there was no reason to start late to allow for team training.

Sakura tuned out Iruka and continued to flick through the images. She tried to keep her face neutral when she saw the chapter titled, "Uchiha Clan Massacre". It was shockingly brief for such a major event.

Its barebones essentially stated: _**The entire clan was massacred with only one exception. The perpetrator was missing-nin Itachi Uchiha**__._

_Only one exception…?_ That must have been Sasuke; she'd clearly seen him earlier. But Itachi was the murderer?

From what she knew, Itachi was skilled without parallel. He'd had disagreements with his clan, and chosen to step down as clan heir, leaving the position to Sasuke. Itachi had been Sasuke's jonin instructor, so the two brothers still saw each other plenty.

_So that isn't the case here._ Sakura figured the Itachi in this new reality must have been a completely different person.

"Sakura?" She looked up to see Iruka-sensei looking at her concerned, and an empty classroom, "Are you coming?"

"What?"

"We're going outside to practice taijutsu…"

"Oh, gosh! Sorry!" She clambered towards the door.

Iruka frowned at her, "Sakura, is everything okay?"

"Fine! Just, I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I'm a little out of it is all." She smiled.

"Okay, well then…" Her teacher didn't look particularly convinced, but he let it drop.

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief and followed him outside.

"Okay class! Grab three skuriken and line up at the targets!"

_There are only three targets?_ Apparently, new-reality Academy was severely under-funded. Despite the silliness of the situation, Sakura grabbed the allotted weapons and lined up. Everyone seemed okay at throwing, but not particularly fantastic.

_I _really_ hope I'm not supposed to be good at throwing kunai now._ She wasn't horrible, but she certainly wasn't skilled at it.

When it was her turn she thunked them in. Two were decently close to the bulleye, and the third was around the edge of the first circle. _Pretty good for me._ So if she was supposed to be terrible at throwing them, then that was bad.

No one said anything, so she just grabbed the shuriken out of the target and got back in line. She glanced up at the person throwing and realized it was Naruto's turn.

He was saying something loudly, but she couldn't quite hear him from the back of the line. Then he flung all three shuriken at once and they went careening wildly off-target to the point where the entire class started laughing.

…_the frick?_ Naruto was awesome at throwing things. Or, at least the Naruto she knew was.

After about three rounds of this, Iruka called them all over to line up, and started pairing them off for taijutsu spars.

Which also went three at a time… great. What was with this Academy and inefficiency? They were getting in so much less training this way. She also held qualms with the fact that now they had an audience for their fighting. _I'm going to have some serious nerves._

Thankfully, she wasn't in the first three groups, so she was able to observe that they were paired so that they were about equal skill.

Sakura wound up being in the second group of three, and she was squaring off against Kasumi. Sakura remembered the girl as being pretty good at taijutsu.

_Which means no holding back._ As a medic, Sakura hadn't done a lot with straight taijutsu. Her style was meant to incorporate Chakra Enhanced Strength. She could do the enhancement when she wasn't fighting, but she still had trouble doing it during an actual confrontation.

Regardless, this was a straight taijutsu fight, so Sakura was prepared to suck.

Kasumi sneered at her as the made the Seal of Confrontation, which was weird, because Sakura was used to Kasumi being a very sweet girl.

Iruka signaled the start of the match, and Sakura wasted no time. She jumped towards Kasumi and punched.

She was very surprised when instead of a counter-attack, Kasumi went flying backwards.

Sakura jumped back a few feet and prepared a fighting stance, but Kasumi didn't get up.

"Great forehead, you knocked her out." She could hear Ino from off to the side.

"I-I did?"

"Well yah! She's totally unconscious!" Ino snapped. Sakura could hear the class mumbling.

_I shouldn't have hit her on the head; I could have given her a concussion! _Not that Sakura had actually thought she'd _land_ the hit, since Kasumi wasn't supposed to suck that bad. _I guess that tells me something about other-Sakura. If Kasumi is supposed to be about her level, then new-reality's Sakura it terrible at taijutsu._

Medic instincts taking over, Sakura knelt down by Kasumi's side and started running a brief diagnostic jutsu. "She'll be fine. She'll have a headache, but there's no concussion."

"Sakura, how do you medic-jutsu?" Iruka asked.

_Oh crap, do I not know that now?_ "I just know the diagnostic-jutsu, it's really easy." The diagnostic jutsu was, and therefore, before reality had gone insane, everyone in her class had known it. _Which is why I didn't think twice about using it! I can't be that careless._

Kasumi started to wake up. "Really sorry I hit you on the head." Sakura held out her hand, "I didn't think it would land." She added quietly.

"You got me?" Kasumi looked pretty upset.

"It was a lucky hit." Sakura smiled, and waited for Kasumi to take her hand.

Grudgingly, the girl did, and they made the Seal of Reconciliation before retaking their place in the audience.

"Wow Forehead, I didn't think you had it in you." Ino said to Sakura as the next set of matches started.

"Uh…" _How am I supposed to react to this?_ "Thank you?"

"Yeah, keep it up, and you _might_ just become a genin next week."

Sakura just smiled until Ino's words sank in. Before, in normal-reality, they'd had a good couple of weeks before the exam took place.

_Now they're next week?!_

**Author's Note: Hello! I realize this chapter cleared up nothing, so I'm sorry, it ended up running so much longer than I thought it would…So next chapter! I'll make things make more sense next chapter. This time I'm serious.**

**Anyway, thank you for reading! Have an awesome day!**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six : Blinded By It All

Rin let the impostor's kunai land straight in her stomach. _And why not? He'll be getting it back full force. _

Regiver, while an incredibly useful and potent jutsu, had a major drawback. The caster had to have a direct link to the sucker on the receiving end.

Rin generally accomplished this with her feet, since both of her hands were needed to make the jutsu's handsigns. So she flicked through the hand signs and slammed her foot down on her opponent's toes. "Regiver no jutsu!"

Her enemy's eyes went wide and he looked down to see his brand-new kunai wound to his gut, but what caught Rin's attention was his unchanged face when it looked up to meet her own.

"You're not a henge?" She asked.

The man didn't respond, he merely Hiraishined over to his partner and the two faced her with a shocked expression.

Quickly forming a set of handseals, Rin tested for a possible genjutsu, "Kai!"

_Not a henge, not a genjutsu…_

Rin sighed and relaxed her battle stance. Not enough that she couldn't resume it, but enough to say she would rather talk at the moment.

"I'll be honest, I'm at a loss." Rin said.

Kushina? nodded, "Same here. I thought for _sure_ you were a henge."

"I'm not." Rin tightened her lips into a tense line as she stared at Minato?'s now profusely bleeding wound. "Whatever is going on here, I don't think fighting is going to help us any."

"Agreed!" Kushina? nodded vigorously, "I don't know if you're really Rin. But I don't think we're enemies."

_That makes no sense._ Rin gave the woman a disbelieving look, _If I'm not really Rin, then I could only be an enemy in disguise. That would most _certainly_ make me an enemy._

But Rin was outnumbered, and if her enemies wanted to make a truce, she had the most to gain.

"I'm willing heal your companion's wound, as a show of good faith."

"That's—" the man started.

"Please! If you don't we'll never get him to a hospital." The woman threw her hands into the air in exasperation.

Rin nodded and moved forward. "If you'd lie down, it'll make the process go faster."

To her surprise, the man did exactly as she asked. _What kind of ninja gives their enemy an advantage like that?_ Sure, maybe the woman could kill Rin before Rin killed him…but there was no guarantee.

_Making him either unbelievably arrogant in his partner's abilities, or in his own. Not entirely unwarranted considering that she's adept at Lady Hokage's chakra chains and he seems capable of using the Hiraishin._ His ability for using her teacher's jutsu also made him a prime candidate for the perpetrator of this nightmare scenario. Assuming that she'd been transported to the graveyard where some sicko had carved her name onto a headstone. _I know it's not a Tsukuyomi-like jutsu._ If it were, Rin wouldn't have been able to sense her position relative to Sakura so easily.

Rin activated her healing technique, and carefully started knitting together the muscle just well enough that he would think it was a solid healing job, but not well enough that it would actually hold together in a fight. _I don't need him to be able to attack me._ And no doubt the man's weak state would serve as a distraction to his partner. _I hate using people this way, but it's effective._

And then with a jolt, she realized that she recognized the chakra.

To a medic—because healing was such a close-proximity and chakra- intensive process—every ninja had their own distinct chakra thumbprint. It was determined by a variety of factors: quantity, direction of flow, chakra nature…the list went on.

Minato almost never got injured, but she'd healed her sensei two times that she could remember. The first time he'd emerged from a battle royale with six S-class enemies with a wound comparative to a paper cut, and he'd humored her need to practice her healing jutsu.

The second time was because Kushina had decided that a fun couple activity would be cooking together, and they should invite "Minato's little rascal's" over for dinner.

And then she'd gotten overenthusiastic and set half their apartment on fire—which was surprising since Kushina was usually a good cook—and Minato had tried to put the fire out with a wind-jutsu…and he'd made it worse.

By the time Team Seven had gotten there, both their teacher and his girlfriend were covered in burns and their apartment smelled like a bonfire.

_For two unbelievably skilled and intelligent ninja, Minato and Kushina got kind of stupid when someone put them in the same room._

Rin remembered though, when she'd healed Minato's and Kushina's burns, the feel of their chakra, because it wasn't like the Fire, or even lightning types that she was familiar with.

So Rin was surprised when she could feel the swift cutting chakra running through the man's coils. From the direction, to the amount, to the wind nature of the chakra, and to the tiny ebbs and flows and twists and turns of the coils…this was her sensei's chakra.

"Well, I think that's good enough." The man/her sensei? stood up abruptly.

"It's not completely heal—"

"I know." His eyes narrowed into the distance, "But we've got company."

%%%%%%%%%%%%

By the time Sakura got home, she was emotionally drained, and she felt physically weak, like someone had sapped the strength in her muscles.

_And I still have to fake my way through the evening._ Her parents were the people more likely than anyone else to realize that she was different.

"I'm home!" She called out as she stepped into the entryway. No one responded so she went ahead into the kitchen. She spotted a note on the fridge in sloppy and hurried handwriting.

_**Called away unexpectedly. If we're not back when you get to sleep, we love you and good night!**_

_Wonder what that was about?_ Sakura shrugged the question off and dropped her bag in her room. _Now what?_

Gosh, what was she supposed to do with herself? She'd always gone with Isuru and Ami to grab takeout, and then gone to wait at the hospital.

She allowed herself a small moment of pity. _I miss them, I'm scared and I want to go home._

"Right." She said aloud to herself, "I've got to use this time."

But she felt stupid talking to herself.

_I should see what I can learn about other-Sakura._ She took a look around, and tried to look for subtle changes in the room.

_There's almost no difference…_ Well, other than the fact that her room was clean and the full length mirror that she vaguely remembered she'd always had was free of dust. _Other Sakura must be a neat person!_ Sakura thought, _Although, it could just mean that other-Sakura's parents clean her room for her…_

_Ugh! I suck at this whole reverse-understanding personality…thing._ She flopped down on her bed and pulled at her hair in frustration, but then her fingers got stuck in the snarls. _I need to cut this._ Sakura had no idea how to care for long hair. She'd never grown it out, since it was crazy-impractical.

_Impractical! Hah! That's it! Other-Sakura is impractical._ Sakura jumped off the bed, _I need to make a running list of what I know about her._ She squeezed her eyes shut and started ticking off mentally. _Other Sakura sucks at taijutsu, is okay at throwing kunai, is impractical, likes to wear dresses and have long hair…and that's all I know. Great._

She'd just have to hope no one noticed that she wasn't quite herself.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura Haruno was not acting like herself.

Iruka knew his students well; he'd been their teacher for years now, so Sakura's unusual behavior was easy to spot. _She said she was sleep deprived but…_ Sakura had stayed up late studying before, and she usually just got grouchy and irritable, not awkward and quiet. And she never lapsed in attention._ Not to mention her taijutsu was unusually aggressive._ _It's not notable enough to bring to anyone yet. But if there isn't an explanation for her behavior, I'll have to bring it to the Hokage's attention._ They couldn't risk any potential moles when the genin teams were assigned.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Sasuke Uchiha didn't care about Sakura Haruno.

But he wasn't stupid. Sakura had acted strangely in class, and it tripped every possible-enemy warning bell he had.

Sakura had deviated from her normal patterns. She'd sat in the back of the classroom, her hair had been a mess (and Kami knew the girl prided herself on that), been cordial to Ino, had in no way tried to approach him even when she came in early from lunch, had come in from lunch with dried blood on her leg, grabbed a textbook, written strange seals on her hand, performed well in taijutsu and hadn't paid attention to Iruka-sensei or participated once voluntarily in class. In fact, when asked to speak, she'd stuttered, even though she spoke in front of the class often when answering questions.

He didn't care about Sakura Haruno, but he _did_ care about a potential enemy in the Academy.

_I won't report it yet, in case it turns out to just be a fluke, but if it continues, I'll bring it to Iruka-sensei's attention._

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Ino Yamanaka was absolutely baffled. When she'd talked to Sakura, it had almost been like before Sakura had ended their friendship and they'd become enemies.

It hurt more than Ino wanted to admit that Sakura had thrown away their friendship. _Stupid Forehead!_

_Doesn't matter though, she'll be back to herself tomorrow._ If she wasn't, then Ino would have reason to worry.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura shuddered. _For some reason, I have a _really_ bad feeling about this._

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"Intruders! You will stand down now!"

Kushina turned to face the voice, and saw two ninja, male and female, had stopped a short distance away from them. "Intruder?! Intruder of what?! I don't even know where we are you know!"

"Kizashi! Mebuki!" The fake?-Rin shouted, "What's going on here?"

"I don't know how you know our names." The woman—Mebuki apparently—shifted into a fighting stance, "But you will surrender now or we will have no choice but to kill you."

"Mebuki, what are you talking about? I'm not an intruder…" Rin—Kushina decided it was easier to just believe that she somehow _was_ Rin—trailed off.

"You know her?" Kushina muttered.

"I know the person she's pretending to be." Rin answered.

"An impostor? Sure seem to be a lot of them around." Minato said as he tensed his shoulders.

"You're telling me." Rin shifted her feet into a fighting stance. "Do we attack or flee?"

"Strategic withdrawal." Minato amended.

The three of them leapt away, just as their enemies jumped forward.

"Sorry, I don't do surrender you know!" Kushina called over her shoulder as they raced towards the forest past the graveyard.

"What is it with you and antagonizing the enemy?" She heard Rin mutter before she asked, "Okay, so now what's the plan?"

"Keep running?" Minato replied. "Sorry, I'm having trouble thinking clearly."

Rin nodded, "Then it's the same for you? You're almost out of chakra, correct?"

Minato and Kushina nodded, and all three of them shot a glance behind them at their adversaries, who were thankfully falling behind.

"You'd know better than me, if you really are somehow Minato-sensei. But my guess is that whatever teleportation jutsu brought us here, it used _our_ chakra to do it."

"A good guess. But that isn't it." Minato's eyes narrowed, "I'm not sure how, but those two ninja behind us; I don't think they're impostors. And at this point, I'm sure you aren't either."

"How can that be?"

"Well, it's only a guess but—"

A figure became distinct from the forest's shadows.

"That's as far as you go, intruders."

**Author's Note: Did that clear everything up for you? No? Oh…Okay then.**

**Thank you for reading! I'll clear everything up at some point, for real this time! :D**

**Have an awesome-sauce day!**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven : The One Who Knows Keeps Getting Interrupted

"That's as far as you go, intruders."

At the unknown presence Minato, Kushina and Rin came to a halt.

"Who are you?" Minato demanded.

"That's not something you should be worrying about. But if I were you, I'd just surrender now." The voice drawled out.

"Forgive me, but we can't let that happen." Minato said as he gave an almost imperceptible flick forward with his fingers. Kushina spotted the signal immediately and the two of them charged forwards. To Minato's surprise, he suddenly realized that Rin was jumping up and diagonally, following the formation. _That's not too surprising though, we used this with Kakashi and Obito._ The surprise came from the fact that he could _feel_ Rin's location. _She has one of the strange-feeling Hiraishin._

Minato brought his full attention back to the fight just in time. He could see Kushina suddenly stop moving the moment she set her feet on the ground within the forest's shadows.

Minato couldn't exactly stop his fall an inch from the ground however. Not without Hiraishining, and his chakra was almost out. He hit the ground and found that he couldn't move, but more than that, he seemed to be mirroring Kushina's stance.

"Shadow Possession Justu, complete." The voice seemed familiar now.

"Shikaku?" Minato asked.

"Well intruder. Looks like you know your information."

"We're no—"

"Mind Transfer Justsu!" Inoichi's voice called out.

_He's trying that on Kushina?!_ It only took a few seconds before Inoichi gave a shout and fell over unconscious. _She's the jinchuriki of the nine-tails. Her head isn't exactly the most hospitable place._ Then again, Inoichi had probably been certain that that _wasn't_Kushina.

There was an awkward pause of non-action, where Shikaku couldn't check on Inoichi for fear of losing his grip on Minato and Kushina. Then Rin struck. Her kunai flew towards Shikaku from her angle in the trees.

Shikaku dodged easily. Judging from the lack of motion or attack, Rin was also caught in Shadow Possession. "Shadow Strangle Jutsu!"

_Oh great, now he's_actually _trying to kill us._ Their formation would have worked fine for most opponents aside from the Nara.

It was time to get out of here, and just suffer the chakra loss. The other two ninja they'd encountered earlier were catching up. Minato Hiraishined to Kushina and then took them over to Rin. He was a little surprised that he was able to pull on the strange Hiraishin seal, but that was good, since it meant he could likely take them far from their current location.

"I'm sorry for the trouble." He made sure to add before teleporting them away.

%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura let the red ribbon slip from her fingers and back onto the dresser. _I've never seen it before, but other-Sakura wears it in every picture she's in._At least she did in all the ones lining the hallway.

_Which reminds me, we had photo albums. No guarantee of it now, though._While her life didn't appear to be drastically different from before, she kept getting tripped up on the details, and as the saying went; a picture was the equivalent of a thousand words. _Or maybe Rin-sensei only meant that for mission reports?_ Personally, Sakura would much rather have a written paragraph on her other's personality.

Sakura was relieved to find her family's album in the same place as she was used to. Once she was back in her room, she sat on her bed and started flipping through the pictures. The photos from her time as a baby to just before she started the academy lacked any notable differences. In fact, she even recognized a few of the pictures.

After other-Sakura started the Academy, the differences started to crop up. Other-Sakura went through a strange bangs-in-her-eyes faze that Sakura had no memory of going through. Then after a few more pictures, other-Sakura had her hair pulled back in that signature red ribbon.

And then suddenly Ino was in the pictures. If Sakura looked at them objectively she'd have to say that Ino and her other were friends.

_Wasn't my other friends with Ami?_ Sakura could see the girl in their first year class photo, asymmetrical purple hair and all. Isuru wasn't in it, but that was expected, he hadn't come to the Hidden Leaf until they were eight. She kept flipping through the photos, skipping past the deluge of images with her and Ino. _I don't think_my_mother was such an obsessive photo-taker._ Although it could have been more that Ami and her had always played farther from home in the woods. Other-Sakura and other-Ino looked like they did a lot of crafts, which were ninja-related, but clean. Judging from the pictures they mostly practiced infiltration-aiding crafts, like bouquet making and art.

_Much prettier for taking pictures._ Sakura mused as she finally arrived at the Academy's second-year class photo. _Nothing different._ Again she skipped past the numerous photos of other-Sakura and her photogenic exploits.

When she reached their third-year photo—when most of them were eight—she scanned it for signs of Ami and Isuru. Ami was there, but concerningly, Isuru was still absent. _But this is the year when his family moved to Konoha…_This was also the year when they'd all been put on three-man squads. With a tightening feeling in her chest, Sakura jumped ahead to their next class photo. Isuru still wasn't there, and Ami was now gone too. They weren't in the fifth-year photo or their last-year photo either.

Did she not know Ami or Isuru at _all_ now?

Sakura had to close her eyes for a second to hold back the tears. She wanted to see her team again. As terrifying as the reality-change was, with them she knew she could handle it. Alone it was a nightmare.

Sakura rubbed at her eyes and tried to focus. Her life in this weird new-reality differed more than she'd originally thought, and she needed to learn all she could before she interacted with anyone again.

Gritting her teeth, she started scanning the photos for outstanding details. She made note of the various events that seemed to be represented in the photos, like "a picnic-day at the park!" and any little captions that were included with the pictures.

Then she pulled out the class photos and laid them on the floor in order. Distressingly, Nanashi was never in the photos, and Fuki, like Ami, was not in any photo past their third-year. _What happened to them?_

Also, it looked like other-Sakura had started growing out her hair midway through their fourth year, judging by its length in the fifth-year photo. The students seemed to have been able to choose their seats for the picture—like her class had been able to—since they weren't ordered in any discernable way that Sakura could detect. Up until the fifth year, her other and Ino were sitting side by side, but in that second-to-last photo, they had a row between them.

Actually, the more she looked at the pictures, it looked like they—along with most of the girls in the class—were crowding around Sasuke. _Huh?_

That and almost all the girls had grown their hair long, except a few like Hinata. _Come to think of it, her hair was short today._

In terms of class dynamics, Naruto was glaring at Sasuke in every photo but the first, and Hinata was giving Naruto shy sideways glances. Shikamaru appeared to sleeping in every one, so maybe his personality wasn't any different. Kiba had Akamaru, and Shino looked stoic like usual. But then again, even if he'd been sticking out his tongue she couldn't have seen it with his high collar and sunglasses. Tobio was there, albeit not by Fuki and Nanashi like Sakura was used to. She ticked her way through her classmates, and found that aside from Ami, Isuru, Nanashi and Fuki, about six others were missing.

Iruka still looked stressed, if less exasperated. And there was another teacher there with white hair that Sakura didn't recognize.

Sakura put the photos and then album back and went back to scanning her room. She didn't discover much, other than that her new set of field kunai that her parents had gotten her as an early graduation gift were missing.

_Might as well do my homework and go to bed._ Sakura thought, _I don't think there's much else I can do right now._

While she worried her lower lip, Sakura scanned through her homework. This new reality was ahead by a couple weeks, so she was prepared not to comprehend the classwork.

After doing a few of the problems sets and review questions, Sakura had to admit that she'd worried far too much. The only concerning thing was that part of the work she had done supposedly covered all the different sections of their political knowledge.

_Did they never learn about other villages? Or heck, our own village infrastructure and designation of missions assigned? Or departments?_

Sakura had figured, after she'd discovered that Lady Hokage hadn't been made the Fifth in this village, that most of the reforms and political entities that the Fifth Hokage had put in place had never happened. But this was ridiculous.

_I'm starting to think that they'd be surprised to learn about how important the _Hokage_ is._ Then she snickered in her head. _Yah, right. Their education might be different, but there is _no_ way they didn't cover at least that much._ It was probably so obvious they didn't even put it on the test.

At least she'd come at a lucky time. With the review underway, she'd have a better idea of what the standard graduate knew, and how Konoha now worked. …Or didn't work.

_Seriously? It's still the old crazy political system._ The old system being an oligarchy, inside of which was a meritocracy combined with a monarchy but with parliamentary input from a meritocracy with democratic characteristics which was all run by the military within the greater structure of a federal state under a monarchy.

Lady Fifth had restructured…pretty much everything. Lady Hokage had distributed power so it was less centralized. The affectionate joke being that she had essentially ditched most of her paperwork. They had an independent judicial system (so it was less biased and less prone to corruption), citizens voted for representatives on a Council, that did more than just select a new Hokage, offer input and suggest proposals. The Council that Sakura was used to was divided into two groups with separate responsibilities, one part for ninja's representation, which handled almost exclusively military affairs and one part for civilian representation, which handled things on a more economic basis. They passed legislation and chose when to enact a War State (which required acceptance from both groups) and when to retract a War State (requiring one group).

They'd only had one War State, but there hadn't been a war. The Hidden Cloud had backed off on something or another.

For the most part, the Council was really in place for two reasons. The first reason was because merchants and shop-owners knew a lot more about the economy than career soldiers.

The second was to prevent another Danzo.

Sakura was too young to remember it, but her parents had told her of the terrifying five months of Danzo's rule. He'd taken over right after the death of the Fourth, and he'd never officially been declared Hokage, but that hadn't stopped him from acting like a dictator. Her parents had glossed over most of the details, but from what Sakura had gleaned, the conditions had been brutal.

He would never have left the seat of power if Lady Fifth hadn't suddenly made a miracle recovery from the brink of near-death. (Rin-sensei had been instrumental in that, to Sakura's never-ending pride as her student.)

Initially it had been as the wife of the late-Fourth Hokage—who was much-loved in Konoha—that she had garnered support, and after she took the seat as the Fifth, she'd made a lot of Lord Fourth's intended changes. Like instituting teams at younger ages, and raising the minimum age for entering into the Chunin Exams to fifteen. This consequently would have affected the age genin could fight in a war, if they'd had one since the law.

Konoha's enormous population had made caution like that possible, and as a result of fewer deaths to inexperience, their ranks had ballooned a bit, which had made the previously controversial law fairly popular with Konoha ninja, especially parents concerned over their progeny's well-being.

The daimyo hadn't been thrilled with the increased power of the Hidden Leaf, and he'd wanted the Fifth replaced. So he'd "gone away" and now his child was the daimyo, and she thought very highly of the Lady Hokage.

The coup d'état had greatly unsettled the other daimyos, so they'd cut back on their respective Hidden Villages out of fear, further catapulting the Hidden Leaf into greater power, simply because of fewer capable enemies.

Sakura had spent _months_ studying all of the various reforms and historical events that had taken place since the leadership of Kushina Uzumaki.

And all _these_ guys had to learn was "The Hokage is the big leader. Of everything. End of story now go out and play."

Then again, she'd still much rather be in _her_ reality.

"Ugh. That's it. Bedtime." She muttered. Sakura put her books away, shut off the light, got into bed, and blinked.

And then it was morning._ The sun is so annoying! _Sakura officially missed sleeping in; she turned a groggy head towards her beeping alarm clock, and smacked the snooze button as hard as she could.

It cracked. _Well, I know _I'm_ not a morning person…_

"Sakura! Hurry or you'll be late!" Her mother's voice called.

"Uh…thank you! I'll be down in a minute!" She called back.

She yanked on her clothes, but one look at her hair in the mirror had her grimacing. _How do I even go about hacking off this mess?_ Her hair was tangled through with rat's nests and snarls. _Other-Sakura had _amazing_ hair-maintenance skills._

_I don't have time to fix it; I'll just have to deal with it._ She crept down the stairs to find the kitchen empty. _What a relief. I'm not ready to meet new-reality parents._ Meeting warped versions of people you barely knew was creepy enough. Sakura didn't want to experience that with her mother and father.

She grabbed something edible out of her fridge and flew out the door and down the street.

%%%%%%%%%%%

"Good morning Ino!"

Ino spun around to see Sakura, nervously raising a hand as she huffed over.

"Good morning forehead." Ino muttered flatly. She couldn't quite muster any enthusiasm for her taunt with Sakura giving her a genuine-looking close-eyed smile. _Her hair looks terrible…_

Sakura caught up with Ino, her serenely happy expression at definite odds with her hurried run, and raced on past.

"Ino, we've got to hurry or we'll be late!" Sakura shouted without even turning her head back.

"Uh, Sakura…" Ino could've sworn she was sweatdropping, "We've got a good half an hour."

"What?" Sakura spun around with wide eyes, "Really?"

"Yeah…" Ino narrowed her eyes, Sakura was still acting bizarre, "How come you didn't know that?"

"My clock broke this morning." Sakura grinned with an edge of mischievousness and pride, "And I'm sorta the one who broke it."

"Oh…" Ino felt her brow involuntarily furrow. _Is that something to be proud of?_

There was pause before, "Say, Ino?"

"Hmm? What?"

"I have a favor to ask."

"Oh? And what do _you_ want forehead?"

Sakura glanced towards the ground, biting her lip in nervousness before she looked up with a surprising amount of determination.

"Would you please help me cut my hair?!"

**Author's Note: Hello! Took me a little bit to update, but here it is! Also, this story now has a cover that isn't a cat! Wohoo!**

**Took me forever to draw it and it still looks odd, but you know what? It's not a cat. And if you squint, you can appreciate that it's colorful.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks to Lord Herobrine, Tsukiyo69, hachi hashi, Falcon's-Fang, Angelix . onix .luna, that one Guest, redrose3443, scrib3, EricMitch, rawr, Isolationism, peeos, Tough Chick, Viridian, and Interested Fan for your reviews! Thanks so much you guys! :D**

Chapter Eight : Operating Blindly

"What?" Ino's eyes went wide.

"Would you please help me cut my hair? I'm awful at it." Sakura worried her lower lip, "But I mean, if you don't want to and all…that's fine! I just was—"

"No! That's not what I meant." Ino blinked and furrowed her brow, "I mean, I just don't get why you'd want to cut your hair all of a sudden."

"Because, it's long and impractical. Enemies could grab onto it." Sakura shrugged.

"But what about Sasuke?"

"What about Sasuke?" Sakura asked honestly. _When the heck did he become a part of this conversation?_

"He likes girls with long hair!" Ino sputtered.

_Really? I wouldn't have guessed…_Then Sakura remembered how in the class photo, so many of the girls had grown their hair long, "Well…there are more important things than what Sasuke likes." _Like not dying. That's_very_important._

"Forehead, are you…giving up on Sasuke?"

_Wait, other-Sakura's hair is long…does that mean she had a crush on Sasuke?_"Yes." Sakura responded, "I am most definitely 'giving up on Sasuke'. I harbor no feelings towards him but neutrality." _I hope that's what I should have said._

Ino gave a nervous smile, "Sure, Sakura. I'll help you cut your hair."

Sakura smiled back. _Maybe that came out a little stiff._

%%%%%%%%%

Rin felt the nauseous pull of the Hiraishin transporting them. She closed her eyes for a second in hopes of stilling the dizzying feeling. Upon opening them, she realized they were in the woods, and judging by the position of the Hokage monument, they were still dangerously close to the village.

"Right." Rin turned towards Minato as he began to speak, "Listen, we've travelled to—"

And then, with all the grace, dignity, and prestige of the honored office of the Hokage, Minato fainted.

Rin thought she heard Kushina mumble, "Twice in two days? That's just embarrassing."

"A mild case of chakra exhaustion, he'll be out for a few hours. It might have been a good idea to have made the Hiraishin jump earlier." Rin observed, "Do you know what he was trying to tell us? I think it's fairly obvious where we've travelled." She gestured towards the Hokage monument.

"I don't know." Kushina shrugged, "Hopefully it wasn't important." She cast a sideways glance into the forest, "We need to get out of here."

"You go ahead. I…" Rin drifted off, _Should I tell her about Sakura?_Their alliance might not hold up. _On the other hand, if it does…_Then Sakura would need all the allies she could get. "My student might be here. If she is, then I need to find her."

"I won't ask how you know." Kushina hoisted Minato onto her shoulders. "That's your secret. Just keep in mind that you're almost out of chakra, and that's a village full of highly skilled ninja, you know."

"It's a risk I have to take."

"I understand. Just be careful, okay Rin?" Kushina gave her a disarming smile.

"Same to you. I don't know where you're heading, so it looks like this is goodbye."

"Of course it isn't. Minato Hiraishined over to you earlier, so you must have one of his tags. When you find your student, just signal with the tag, and we'll be there to get you guys out, you know."

"I…" Rin smiled, _Kushina would definitely say that._ "Thank you." Rin turned to start walking back towards the village, "You know, you were right, earlier."

"I was? I mean, of course I was!" Kushina gave an embarrassed grin, "What was I right about again?"

"You might not be Kushina and Minato-sensei, but I don't think we're enemies."

There was a moment of contemplative silence before Kushina turned away from the village, and leapt to the trees, "Hurry up and find your student." She called over her shoulder. "We'll be waiting, you know!"

"I won't be long!" Rin called over her shoulder as she too, took to the trees. _Sakura, I hope you're safe._

%%%%%%%%%

Outside in the Academy's courtyard, under the shade of the swing-holding tree, Ino picked up her scissors with a slightly trembling hand, and gathered the pink hair together in the other. _This is so surreal._ "Just making sure, one last time, you really want to do this?"

"Yes! I am very sure." Sakura nodded, pulling her hair slightly out of Ino's grasp. She couldn't see Sakura's face, from where she sat on the grass behind her, but her voice didn't waver.

"Okay then..." Ino shucked a large chunk of Sakura's hair off in her hand, and set it in a pile to the side. "I'm surprised you asked me to help you."

"Hmm?"

"Well, I mean, you did fine with hair-cutting in kunoichi classes. Of all people why _me_?"

"Uh, well…m-my hand is, from the alarm clock, I broke it. Not my hand! My alarm clock, but my hand's control was affected from breaking the clock and…so…" Sakura just sort of trailed off, but Ino could see her hands clenching her skirt.

"Right." Ino sat back a bit against the tree, and shot a glance at the Academy to see if anyone was trickling in yet. _Nope. We've still got time._ She'd picked this spot to keep the mess under control, but there wasn't a clock, so she was improvising. "But why'd you ask _me_?" She set about trimming down the ends to about shoulder-length.

"Who else would I ask?" Sakura blurted out rather quickly.

"I don't know, anyone?" Ino glanced up from her hair cutting, "I mean, we haven't been friends in forever."

To Ino's surprise, Sakura stiffened at that. "We…" Sakura remained upright for a moment, like she was thinking of something, and then practically collapsed in on herself, "Did we really stop being friends over something so stupid?"

Ino was thankful she'd snipped the last piece of hair before that sentence. "_You_ stopped being friends with _me_ over something so stupid!" She stood up then, and clenched her teeth. _I thought this was her way of apologizing, but she's seriously pretending she doesn't remember breaking off our friendship?!_

She honestly didn't expect that when Sakura turned around, her face and voice would reflect so much _shock_. "Ino, I'm-I'm so sorry…"

Ino turned her gaze to the ground, away from her enemy's wide eyes, "I don't know where this is coming from Sakura. But it's going to take a lot more than that before I forgive you."

She could hear Sakura stand up, and from the periphery of her gaze, she realized that Sakura was holding her scissors out to her. _I didn't even realize I'd dropped them._

"I understand. But I hope…" When Ino didn't take the scissors back, Sakura just set them down near her and gathered up the pile of pink hair she'd made. "Someday…"

Without finishing the sentence, Sakura walked away towards the school.

%%%%%%%%%

_That was extremely uncomfortable._ Sakura tossed her pink hair into a trash can and grabbed herself a seat in the third row right where she liked it—close enough to the front to see everything, but not close enough that she'd have to participate.

Sakura was starting to get a grasp of other-Sakura's life.

_So other-Sakura and Ino were sitting a row apart for a very good reason._ The two of them probably hadn't been friends in years. _I guess my request must have sort of come out of the blue._

There was one thing she wasn't totally certain of though. _What exactly did other-Sakura do? She couldn't have actually ended their friendship over some boy, right?_

For the rest of the day, no one approached her, or tried to talk to her. No one even smiled or waved, and when lunch came, no one invited her to sit with them, just like yesterday.

That was how Sakura realized that other-Sakura didn't have any friends.

It was a sad conclusion, and a relief. Sakura felt bad for her counterpart, but at the same time, no friends meant that people didn't know her very well, or at least wouldn't care as much that she was acting different.

There was no taijutsu for the day, so Sakura spent the entire time tuning out the lecture. _We've already learned all of this._ Other-Academy was worryingly behind.

Naruto hadn't been there for the day, for whatever reason. The class was even more boring without him.

_Still, I cannot get over how_nice_it feels to have short hair again._ Sure, the thing with Ino had been disconcerting—Sakura wasn't comfortable with apologizing for things she hadn't done—and downright shocking at the time, but even in her reality, she hadn't really _known_ Ino, so losing a friendship she'd never had didn't really matter to her.

_I just hope that Ami doesn't hate me too._

The shuffling of students brought Sakura out of her thoughts as she realized the Academy day was over. She walked past Iruka's desk, where Sasuke looked to be in a serious conversation with her teacher. They both shot her an discomforting glance, but she ignored it and walked out of the classroom.

When she got home she surprised to find her parents both sitting at their table, hunched over in deep conversation. They jumped a bit when she came in.

"Sakura! Welcome home, dear." Her mother leapt up with an oddly tense smile.

"Hi mom, hi dad." Sakura tried to give a disarming smile in return.

"Sakura, you have a doctor's appointment. Standard pre-gennin medical check." Her father rushed out with a gruff tone.

"Uh…okay. Are we leaving now or later?" She felt like her smile had frozen on her face. _They're acting so weird, I guess they must be pretty different from __my__ parents._

"Now." Her father announced as he stood up.

The walk to the doctor's was silent and tense, as was the doctor's examination. They conducted far too many tests for a simple check-up, and they didn't leave the hospital until all the results came back, for which the doctor pulled her parents into a side room.

When they came out however, they were notably relaxed.

"Sakura." Her father pulled her close and gave her a tight hug, "Let's get out of here."

She just smiled as her mother gave a weepy hug, "Is everything alright you guys?" _With everyone's attitude I feel like I'm going to hear that I've only got a few months left to live._

"Everything's fine, Sakura dear." Her mother smoothed her hair and her eyes widened with surprise, "You cut your hair?"

"Ino helped me with it today." She explained as they started walking outside.

"Why?"

"I dunno. I just figured that if I'm going to be a ninja, I might as well have practical hair."

"I figured that, but why did you ask Ino to help you? I thought the two of you didn't get along?"

Sakura shrugged, "Well, she was the only one I could think of to ask."

"Sometimes you have to sea your anemone to make things work." Her father supplied.

Sakura doubled over in laughter, "Oh wow dad, that, that was a good one." She huffed out between laughs.

"Sakura, are you alright?" her mother asked.

"Yeah why?"

"No-no reason." Her mother muttered as they arrived home.

%%%%%%%%%%

"Mebuki Haruno? Kizashi Haruno?" An unfamiliar voice called out.

Mebuki set down one last chakra-sensing seal—she didn't know how to make them, but they required fine chakra control to be used, and that was their family specialty—before she looked up. She was a little annoyed to be interrupted during such a delicate process, but she painted on a close lipped smile.

"Yes, how can we help you?" She asked. Mebuki could see Kizashi to her side standing up and dusting off his knees.

"You've been summoned to the Hokage's office." The man said in an uncomfortably grave voice.

The lack of a wait made her even more uneasy. _What could be so important?_

She and Kizashi stood before Lord Third and waited anxiously for him to speak.

"This may be nothing, and truly I hope that's all it turns out to be." The Third held up a thin folder, which Kizashi stepped forward to take. "We're being more precautious than normal, as the genin team assignments are coming up, and we cannot afford compromises to the safety of the students.

Mebuki tensed at the mention of students because _her daughter was one of them_.

Kizashi stiffened beside her, and she leaned over to see the contents of the folder. Mebuki felt her breath hitch when she saw Sakura's face paper-clipped in the corner.

"Lord Hokage, what is this?" she demanded, forgetting protocol for a moment.

"I'm afraid that Sakura has shown highly altered behavior in public, starting yesterday and continuing today, at least when her teacher reported in during their lunch. Can you testify that she has undergone an event that would greatly affect her behavior? Has she been acting in this capacity in your home?"

"We-we haven't been home in the evenings for the past couple of days." Kizashi managed to choke out.

"Working on the gravesite anomalies?" The Hokage asked, but it seemed to be a question he already knew the answer to, because he didn't wait for them to speak. "There's a simple way to resolve this. When Sakura comes home, bring her to the doctor. We'll have a room set up and her regular physician will be able to detect whether or not that is in fact Sakura Haruno's chakra."

Mebuki wanted to sob and bury her face in her husband's shoulder, but she was a ninja, and good ninja didn't show emotion. _How could they know after just two days?_

She forced herself to nod, receive the details of their mission, and walk home.

When Sakura had come into the house, Mebuki had known it wasn't her. That was when she'd _known_ that her Sakura was gone.

Her daughter came into a room and made _noise, _not a lot, but audible. That was standard for a genin, and it would be corrected in time.

This _impostor_ moved in silently, to the point that it made her and Kizashi jump a bit.

She talked differently, acted differently. She was clearly _not_ Sakura, and suddenly Mebuki understood how Sakura's teacher could have the confidence to report this in to the Hokage in so little time.

So when the doctor pulled Kizashi and her aside, and told them that their daughter was just fine, Mebuki was beside herself with relief, and no small amount of confusion.

For a few minutes she tried to convince herself that her daughter was fine, but then Sakura laughed at Kizashi's joke.

She met her husband's eyes over the pink head of hair and she knew that he was unnerved as well.

They had the medics' word; this was most certainly their daughter.

But Mebuki still couldn't shake the feeling that something was _wrong_ with Sakura.

%%%%%%%%%%

The week to graduation rolled by in a sea of isolation. Sakura felt the empty air beside her like a missing limb because it hurt, even if there wasn't anything there.

She'd never quite understood how much Ami and Isuru meant to her until now. How much she'd miss the constant hum or their conversation, or the little rituals that carried them through the day. Sakura missed learning from Rin-sensei, and guessing at why they were doing what they were doing.

Still, she found it infinitely easier to miss people that just simply weren't there, compared to people who were there but _wrong._

Her parents had avoided her after the first day she'd met them. They jumped every time she walked into the room, and whenever they talked to her, it wasn't a conversation, instead it felt more like an interrogation.

_ Well, technically I _am_ an impostor, so they have reasons to be suspicious._

That was wearing on her too, the worry that she'd be discovered, that she wasn't playing other-Sakura very well. Stress was starting to become a constant unnerving hum, and she _hated_ it.

The graduation test went easy enough, and she didn't stick around to see how everyone else did. She felt bitter about graduating. Sakura had always imagined it would be with her team, and her parents and other friends.

Instead she'd become a genin for a village that she didn't consider hers, and she was alone. Her "parents" were off on a mission, and other-Sakura's lack of friends suddenly felt much less convenient.

She walked away from the throng of students gathered with their parents in front of the Academy.

_I don't feel like going home._ She realized.

Instead, Sakura found herself drawn to where, in her reality, her team had trained every evening.

The training grounds were depressingly unused and overgrown. _I guess we were the only ones who ever used our training grounds anyway._ Sakura walked to the clump of trees in the center of the grounds and sat down inside their shelter. The dead leaves on the dirt crunched as she sat down and rested her forehead on her knees.

After a pause, Sakura heard two more crunches, and she looked up to see what made the noise. She could see a pair of feet, which her eyes followed up to the face.

Even though she was certain this would be a disappointment, Sakura couldn't help the reflexive smile that lit her face.

**Author's Note: Hiya! So I'm really looking forward to writing next chapter, since I've had it in my head forever. This chapter I tried really hard to show and not tell, but I wanted to get past the week prior to graduation, since I couldn't think of anything exciting to happen. :P**

**Edit (4/22/14): Sorry, there was this weird block of unintentional italics right in the middle of the story, so I changed that back to non-italics. :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Huge thanks to Tough Chick, hachi hashi, Tsukiyo69, silverwolfighter00, Eric Mitch, and Isolationism for your reviews! You guys are awesome!**

Chapter Nine : Plausible Deniability

Kushina really hoped that Minato would wake up soon. She was getting tired of lugging him over her shoulder.

_If my chakra levels weren't at nonexistent this wouldn't even be a problem!_

Some days she had to wonder if the universe conspired against people just for its own amusement.

The kunai whizzing past her ear signaled that, yes; the universe really did have something against her.

Kushina dropped from the tree branches and ducked behind a tree. She set Minato down. _Although right now would be a_great_time for him to wake up!_ And jumped back to the branches to face her opponent.

"Sakumo?!" Kushina gasped.

"No." The ninja facing her sounded fairly annoyed, but he didn't offer up a name.

Kushina took it as an invitation to start the fight. It was a little hard to think straight, being as low on chakra as she was. So Kushina took the simpler approach, she lashed out with her chakra chains.

And promptly passed out from chakra exhaustion.

%%%%%%%%%%%

Kakashi had to admit; it was a little embarrassing when a fight was over before it even began. He hung back a few moments from the unconscious impostors. One on the ground where she'd fallen from the tree, and the other partially obscured behind the same tree, in case they were faking it, and waited for the rest of his ad hoc team to catch up.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" The green blur flew past him at a speed that suggested Gai would not be able to stop before he hit a tree, however, stopping didn't seem to be in Gai's plan, because he just kept going.

Kakashi sighed. _Now what?_ Walking over to two ninja who could definitely be faking their unconsciousness was a bad plan. But waiting for Gai to realize he'd passed them by wasn't any better, if for no other reason than that if they really were unconscious, there was a good chance they'd wake up before Gai got back.

He was saved from deciding when the other two members of his team arrived.

"Kakashi." Asuma offered in greeting. He cast the two unconscious ninja a wary glance.

"Where did Gai go?" Kurenai questioned as she looked around.

"Oh, he decided to keep going." Kakashi gave a close-eyed smile and pointed in the direction Gai had gone.

"Then, you took out both of them?" Kurenai looked mildly baffled, and Kakashi couldn't blame her. The two-minute briefing had made it sound like they were just as powerful as the people they were pretending to be.

_Well, to be fair they still could be._Despite the woman's rather unreasonable decision to use more chakra than she had, that could certainly be chalked up to dangerously low chakra levels. Mental fogginess was one of the main reasons that ninja tried not to fight to near exhaustion; that was how a person made stupid decisions.

"No, the man was already out. The woman lost consciousness from chakra loss." Kakashi explained as he and Asuma secured the prisoners.

"Where's the third one?" Asuma asked as he slapped on a few more chakra-suppressing seals.

"Not with them. Pakkun couldn't catch her scent past the graveyard." Kakashi narrowed his visible eye, "Whoever she is, she's good." It was worrying that the impostor was skilled enough to completely mask her scent. "But judging from the scent-strength of the other two a while back, it's a good guess that they rested for a bit."

"If that's the case," Kurenai touched her finger to her chin in thought, "it's possible that's where they split up."

Asuma grimaced, "We need to find the third infiltrator, before they accomplish whatever mission they came for."

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Getting back into the village was proving a lot more difficult than getting out, Rin discovered. Security had been bumped up apparently, and Rin couldn't find any gaps in the guards. Whatever this village was, they seemed rather determined to stop anyone from entering. _Then I'll just have to be_more_determined._

Rin analyzed the patterns for a few minutes. _I know these formations._ She supposed she could just be seeing impostors everywhere, but Rin couldn't shake the feeling that this village_itself_ was an impostor.

_Or something entirely different is going on._ If that was the case, or if this impostor-village (and didn't that just sound silly) was as accurate as Rin was beginning to suspect, she had a way to get inside.

After Kushina had pulled Danzo's Root apart, the teams investigating the organization had discovered various hidden entries into the village. They had likely been in place to allow Danzo's followers a discrete means in and out of Konoha without detection.

Rin traveled through the forest for a few minutes before she came across the entrance she was looking for.

For all intents and purposes, Lady Hokage had sealed the secret passages. Rin had been trusted enough that she was privy to know which tunnels were permanently sealed, and which tunnels only _seemed_ sealed.

However, the tunnel she was currently looking at had only a simple genjutsu covering it. _Nothing compared to what Lady Hokage put in place for ours._

The fact that the tunnel even _existed_ like she thought it should told Rin that either her enemies knew a terrifying amount of information on Konoha, or like she suspected, something else was up.

Regardless of that uncomfortable thought, Rin entered the secret passage. Aside from a few close-calls with tricky traps, Rin found the tunnel bizarrely unguarded.

A _scrit screet_ along the passage's wall made her throw a kunai in reflex. It was only after the weapon had left her hand that she realized it was only a rat.

And it was only after the kunai hit and the creature popped like a water balloon that she realized it _wasn't_ a rat.

Rin put on a show of shaking her head and continuing on as if she hadn't noticed anything. She didn't want her enemy to attack because they knew they'd been spotted.

It was a bit disquieting for her when no one had attacked her by the time she left the tunnel. If they'd wanted to ambush her, that would have been the place.

Warily, Rin surveyed where she'd come out at. _Pretty close to the village gates._

Sakura's location was further towards the center of the village, so Rin took off in that direction. She couldn't tell if the enemy she'd run into earlier had followed her, but she was fairly certain that they hadn't.

With a smile, Rin realized that Sakura was in their training grounds. _Maybe this_is _the real Sakura. I hope so. I'm tired of impostors._

%%%%%%%%%%%

Sakura tried to school her face into neutrality. "Hello." She greeting the new arrival to her shelter of trees.

"Does Akemi's Super Spicy Special mean anything to you?" She was asked without greeting.

Sakura felt her eyes widen at the question, and she almost automatically responded, "It's Rin-sensei's favorite food."

%%%%%%%%%%%

For a second after he woke up in the interrogation room, Minato thought he was somewhere else.

Irrespective of his location, his lack of mobility was starting to drive him crazy. Minato gritted his teeth and did his best to control his breathing.

_Kushina and Rin must have been caught by the Leaf Ninja, and if my theory is correct, we could be in any amount of danger right now._

A quick assessment of his state found himself uninjured, but his chakra was effectively repressed by seals. Taking a second look at the seals, he spotted some that were probably meant to read his emotional state, and a few that enabled the seal-setter to tell whether or not he was lying.

Minato tugged his arms up a bit, testing the integrity of the restraints more out of boredom than any belief he'd be able to brute-force his way out his current predicament.

_I can only assume they weren't able to read Kushina's or my mind._That meant his memory and mental seals had held up, and he was getting the old-fashioned kind of interrogation. _Or they don't have ninja capable of performing the Mind Reading jutsu._

Still bored and full of anxiety, he tapped his fingers in a nonsense rhythm against the arm of the chair. _Whatever happens, I have to stall for time._

After analyzing the room a bit, Minato was pretty sure he recognized the room as Leaf.

He couldn't see any doors, so the entrance was probably behind him

As if to prove his theory right, a voice came from out of his sight, "Minato Namikaze." The speaker walked to just behind Minato's chair, before he circled around to where Minato could see him. "Or should I just call you a dead man?"

%%%%%%%%%

Ibiki Morino was going to enjoy this.

The Fourth Hokage had been well-respected in Konoha, and Ibiki didn't exactly have any warm feelings towards someone who disrespected that memory.

"Who?" The impostor asked. The fear and confusion in his voice were well-faked.

"What, exactly, do you mean 'who'?" Ibiki shot him a glare that promised pain.

"W-who are you asking about?"

"Minato Namikaze." Ibiki snorted. "Are you deaf?"

"N-no. But who are you talking about?"

"You're really trying that?" Ibiki sounded annoyed as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall opposite the prisoner.

"Trying w-what?"

"You're clearly impersonating the Fourth, I want to know why." Ibiki straightened up in a manner that conveyed danger, "So cut the act."

"The Fourth?"

"Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage?" Ibiki gave him a confident smirk, to show he was just humoring him, "You're saying you've never heard of him?"

"Of course I've heard of Minato Namikaze," The impostor's eyes grew wide.

_Well that was a quick confession,_Ibiki thought.

"You just told me about him!"

Ibiki really wanted to bury his head in his hands. _This is going to be one of_those_prisoners._

Every once and a while, captives tried to play the 'I don't know anything card'. The most blatant annoyance was when they claimed amnesia. Other times it was 'I'm innocent, I swear I've been framed!'. Sometimes, however, they just played the, 'I'm clueless' card. Which is what this one seemed to be doing.

Thankfully, that story was also the easiest one to shatter. Ibiki gave a minute nod to the specialist reading the impostor for lies. Eventually, every prisoner had to answer a question honestly or not at all, and even if they lied; that was usually a good clue as to the truth.

This was why good ninja didn't speak at all when under interrogation. Even lying could give away information.

Normally they would have dispensed with all the formalities of interrogation, but the two prisoner's they'd just gotten in had incredibly effective seals blocking their memories from being seen by even the Mind Reading Amplification Machine.

"So you're not claiming to be Minato Namikaze?"

"Look, whoever this person is that you keep talking about, I'm not him, and I'm not trying to convince anyone else that I am." The man pleaded.

"Which is why you look so similar to him." Ibiki provided. The resemblance between the impostor and the Fourth was uncanny. There was no jutsu being used for it either, so the similarity had been obtained by other means, or was simply a natural coincidence the enemy was using in their favor.

The prisoner looked baffled at the question before he answered, "I would assume that's not the reason for the similarity."

"That was sarcastic." Ibiki bit out.

"Oh…I see."

"Right, so if you're not Minato Namikaze, then who are you?"

"Oh, um…people call me Ayudai." The man sputtered out nervously.

"Last name?"

"What?"

"What is your last name?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to answer that."

"Don't you have a last name?"

"I think my wife does. Is the last name the same thing as a secondary name?"

"Fine then, what is your wife's secondary name?"

"Habanero."

Ibiki didn't miss that that had been Kushina's nickname.

"And her first name?"

"Tomato."

"Right." Ibiki drawled sarcastically, "We'll see if that holds up." _With the red theme, it's a pretty good bet the redhead is his wife._

"Is my wife here? Is she alright?!"

"She's here, and she's unharmed," Ibiki gave a pause, and the impostor slumped in relief, "for now that is. Whether or not she stays that way depends on how you answer my next questions."

'Ayudai' jerked upright in alarm.

_It's impressive just how good this guy is at faking it._Ibiki figured if he asked, "What was you purpose in coming to Konoha?" he was going to get a non-answer, so he settled with a more neutral question.

"How did you come to be in Konoha?" he asked instead.

Ayudai furrowed his brow, and appeared to be considering the question carefully. "I...I honestly don't know."

"Not good enough." Without turning around, Ibiki punched the wall behind him, making an audible pound.

"I swear that's the truth! One minute we were in my office, and the next we were in a graveyard." The prisoner shuddered, "I think we were actually _in_ the coffins. It's all a little blurry at that point."

"Why did you run when our forces attempted to apprehend you?"

Ayudai looked at him like he'd lost his mind, "Um, because we were being attacked by crazy people?"

"Are you claiming that you did not recognize the insignia on their headbands?"

"Yes, I saw it."

Ibiki was thankful he had a lot of patience. "Do you know what it is?"

"The insignia? It kind of looks like a snail."

"Are you even a ninja?!" Ibiki bit out, "How do you not recognize the Hidden Leaf's symbol?"

"A ninja? What made you think that? I'm in the transportation trade." Ayudai looked honestly confused.

"Is your wife a ninja?"

"No, she's a teacher." The man quirked a nervous, but fond smile.

"Where are you from?"

"We live in a small village...you probably haven't heard of it. Most people just call it Remains."

"So the other woman who was with you, is she a ninja?"

"I don't know, the graveyard was the first time I met her."

"You were wearing Leaf headbands."

"The ones with the snails? Yah! Funny coincidence. The people I work for? That's their logo!"

Ibiki wanted to snort at the obvious falsehood, but the lie-detector specialist signaled to him that; in fact, that was completely the truth.

"You and your wife are capable of using jutsu." Ibiki pointed out with annoyance.

"Of course."

There wasn't much left to prevent Ibiki from smacking his face into a wall.

"_How_ do you know jutsu?" he gritted out.

"Well, I was _taught._" the man's tone reminded Ibiki of someone explaining something to a small child.

"Who was your teacher?" Ibiki muttered out half-heartedly.

"Oh, you know what? I think _he_ was a ninja!" Ayudai perked up with a genuine smile, "Actually, the inspiration for the snail logo? He always used to wear one of those funny sweatbands with that on it."

_I'd almost say we're finally getting somewhere, but that would be optimistic._"Where is he now? Do you know his name?"

"Oh, we kicked him out. He was awful. Most people either called him 'Master', or 'creepy snake pedophile'. Depended."

"Depended on what?"

"On whether or not he was in earshot."

Ibiki sighed and walked towards the door.

"Wait! Please! Don't hurt my wife! I swear we're not-"

The door cut off the rest of the man's sentence. Ibiki looked towards one of the door-guards.

"Report to the Hokage, tell him there's a possible connection to Orochimaru." Ibiki honestly couldn't think of any other male ninja that had to do with snakes and wore Leaf headbands. He cast a glance back toward the room Ayudai sat in. "I'm not getting anything from him. I'm going to question the other one."

That...didn't go any better.

"Kushina Uzumaki?"

"Who are you looking for?"

Ibiki sighed, "Tomato Habanero?"

"No! _You_are the Tomato!" The woman jerked against the chair's restraints.

"Are you insulting me?" Ibiki wasn't sure how that counted as a slight.

"I am the great Habanero! Fear me!"

"What is your purpose in—"

"The young man who was old was young was old!"

Ibiki gave the woman an exasperated expression. _Well, Kakashi_did_say she fell from a tree._

This was going to be a long night.

**Author's Note: Hello! This chapter was interesting to write. It was a little hard to transfer the idea I had in my head into written form, so I'm not sure how well it worked out, but I'm really excited to write the next chapter, since I get to bring together some clues I had here. Also, I get to explain what in the world Minato and Kushina are trying to accomplish with their weird cover story/insane ranting.**

**If you've got the time, I'd love a review. Even if it's just a couple words or a question. :)**

**Anywho, have a wonderful day! :D**


	10. Chapter 10

**Big thanks to zolydck, hachi hashi, skyisthelimit, narutouzumaki6497, Sumiku Agaishi, Tsukiyo69, Guest and Iluvstorys for your reviews on last chapter! You guys are awesome!**

Chapter Ten : There's No "I" In "Team"...But There Is A "Me"

Ami slung her bag around her shoulder and set out on her route to her house. The street bustled and people swerved around each other. Citizens of the Hidden Leaf clustered around the shops, anxious to finish their errands before they went home.

All Ami wanted was to get home without anything weird happening, and at this point in her day, it was starting to seem like a tall order. Forcefully, she shoved the thought aside and tried to focus on more mundane things.

_So much homework to do._ Ami sighed and glared at the pavement. The civilian Academy was like that. _Maybe I could just play hooky—_

And then Ami was looking out over Konoha from the Hokage Monument, and Sakura was gasping and giggling into her shirt sleeve, "I can't believe we just did that!"

With a jerk, the world stretched and pulled and she was back in the middle of the busy street, and her skull felt like it was full of needles.

Ami clutched her aching head, _Ugh! Not again! _She was starting to think that she should go the hospital—

And she was there, in the hospital waiting room. Beyond her control, her head titled down towards her fingers.

"That makes five pink flowers, six yellow flowers and nine red." Ami heard her voice say; watching her fingers tick off the numbers.

"So you win?" A boy's voice to her left asked.

"Nope," Ami felt her head shake, and her voice was speaking again, "Sakura wins, since she picked pink, and that color had the least amount of flowers."

"That's just silly Ami!" Again, without her wanting it to, Ami's gaze flickered to her right, and saw Sakura giggling, "We all won!"

"Huh?" The boy to her left asked, and Ami's gaze briefly turned to see him titling his head. Ami realized with a start that she recognized him from another one of these episodes, his name was Isuku or something.

"Well, one of us won, so _all _of us won!" Sakura proudly placed her hands on her hips. "And, we managed to kill ten minutes while waiting for sensei!"

"Yah!" The boy—not Isuku...Isuru—fist-pumped.

Ami heard herself burst out laughing.

Then with another stretch-pull she was back on the road. This time the abrupt scene change made her stumble a bit, and a few people on the street gave her odd looks. _Stop! Stop just knock it off! _She screamed in her head. Ami was so not in the mood for this crap. _No matter how usual it's gotten lately—_

Without warning, she stood in front of a food shop, and she faced a woman with a sun-watt smile.

"Hi Akemi! We'd like the usual!" Ami heard herself greet the restaurant-owner with a grin.

"All ready to go." The woman—named Akemi apparently—smiled and handed her four takeout boxes, "I think your teacher's the only one who eats my super-spicy special."

"Of course!" The boy—the same one from the hospital—waved his hands excitedly, "Rin-sensei is just so cool, that hot food doesn't bother her!"

"Good one Isuru," Sakura was snickering, "Cool." Snicker, "Hot." Snicker, "Good pun."

"Yah! And I didn't even mean to do it!"

"Come on guys," Ami could hear her voice chime out good-naturedly, "let's get going."

And a split second later she was back on the street, clutching her aching head and trying to make sense of what was going on.

_ I never said that! I've never met that Isuru kid and I _hate_ Sakura, why would I be all chummy with her? And who the hell is Rin?_ Ami finally staggered over to the bench along the road.

For three freaking days Ami had been getting these weird false-memories, and she was sick and tired of it. The whole thing had started innocent enough. The first day she'd been brushing her hair in the morning, and this obviously not-real memory had popped up of her complimenting Sakura's hair when they younger. _As if I'd ever! _Sakura's hair was dumb. And so was her forehead.

Then, that night she'd had some goofy dream about some hyperactive kid named Isuru running all over the place and ranting he was bored, and then she'd woken up. Honestly, Ami hadn't thought anything of it, because dreams were just dreams.

The second day she'd had a couple of flashbacks to sitting in Konoha's hospital waiting room, chatting with Sakura and that Isuru kid about schoolwork, and the kids in their class, and musing about Iruka's stress possibly shortening his life-span.

Today had been the real problem. She'd had no less than ten random flashbacks pop up throughout the day. Thankfully, she'd been able to cover for her lapses in attention, but it was freaking her out.

_And now I can't walk three flipping steps without slamming into one._

With a disgruntled sigh, Ami stood up and started walking. She didn't realize that she was going the wrong way until she found herself at a decrepit field. _Why would I walk here of all places?_ Apparently her unconscious had forgotten that the way home was in the opposite direction.

Ami was about to leave when she spotted a shock of pink next to one of the trees. _It couldn't be..._

But if it _was_ Sakura, Ami needed answers.

Ami stomped over to one of her least-favorite people. _What the heck do I say?_

Sakura solved the problem for her.

"Hello," Ami's adversary greeted her with a smile.

_Weird__. _Ami decided. She was not used to getting smiles from enemies.

_Now I just have to be subtle about getting information._

"Does Akemi's Super Spicy Special mean anything to you?" She blurted out.

_Wow Ami,_ her inner-critic piped up,_ what was that about subtlety again?_

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Rin reached their training ground without trouble, and took a moment to take in her surroundings before she broke from the forest. She could feel from Sakura's seal that her student was _close_, probably in the cluster of trees near the center. _Th__is training ground is poor shape. __Disuse this bad takes years._ Or at least that was how long it would take for nature to completely reclaim its domain and eliminate any evidence of her students practicing strength enhancement, as that had a tendency to leave thick spiderweb cracks in the dirt.

Rin cast a glance at the road to look for anyone who might see her leave the line of trees she was behind as she made her way to Sakura.

She was surprised to see her purple-haired student marching up to the tree-cluster, seeing as her seal wasn't active. _She might be going to talk to Sakura. If they do talk, I might be able to confirm that they're my students without revealing my prescense._

With fast and silent footsteps, Rin made her way to the trees.

%%%%%%%%%%%%

"It's Rin-sensei's favorite food." The girl sitting against the tree replied. Her eyes opened in fear as if she'd revealed a secret.

"Okay. So do you know what's going on?" Ami spit out. _I can't believe I have to talk to _Sakura_ of all people._ "Because this is seriously weirding me out—"

She was cut off when Sakura _hugged _her. _Ugh!_ "Get off me Forehead!" She pushed the offending girl off, "Kami, what is _wrong_ with you?"

"Ami?" Sakura didn't stumble back, she gracefully stepped back, to Ami's annoyance, but her face looked incredibly betrayed.

"Seriously Sakura. I just wanted to know if you knew what the hell is going on!" She snapped.

Sakura gave a level glare, and Ami flinched back automatically. _Why does she look so scary?_ Ami's head supplied the automatic, '_Cause her face is so ugly._

"What _I _want to know, is how you knew about Rin-sensei's favorite food." Sakura's voice was quiet, but Ami couldn't shake back the sense of danger.

There was a nauseating swerve, and Ami found herself halfway across the training grounds. The most notable difference-and the one that made it obvious she was experiencing another false-memory-was that it was nighttime, and the clearing was lit by only the moon and the street lamps a bit behind her. Sakura walked into her line of vision.

"So when you put the Strength Enhancement all together, it should look like this." Sakura said as she pulled back her fist. The girl took a breath, and then punched the ground.

Even in the dark, Ami could clearly see the dark zig-zag line that traveled across the dirt. _She split the ground!_ Ami thought.

_"My friend's a natural." _Ami took a moment to realize that that comment hadn't been made out loud. She jerked against the foreign thought, because in all these episodes where she'd been stuck in this other Ami's head, she'd never had one where the other Ami was in _her _head._  
_

Once she started fighting the memory, it fizzled away to bring her back to the clearing.

"Ugh." Ami clutched her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

"I won't ask again, how did you know about Rin-sensei's favorite food?"

"Because I keep remembering things that didn't happen!" Ami shouted.

"Ami…" Sakura's voice sounded frustrated, and then after several long seconds of silence, Ami felt a hand rest on her shoulder, and Sakura's voice continued on in a gentler tone, "_What_ exactly are you remembering? Isuru? Rin-sensei? Our team?"

Ami refused to meet the other girl's eyes, "Yah, no? I don't know, maybe..." She took a breath, and muttered, "There's a kid named Isuru, and he's hyperactive as a squirrel." She heard Sakura giggle a little, "And you're there and we're friendly all the time. But that doesn't make any sense because we're enemies, and Isuru and Rin don't exist!" Ami continued glaring at her kneecaps, because she just couldn't look at Sakura's smug expression for the next part, "I'm not even a ninja! I dropped out of the freaking program, so none of these stupid memories could have happened!" Ami straightned up a bit, but focused her gaze to her right.

She heard Sakura let out a sigh, and then Sakura brought her other hand up to Ami's other shoulder, "Ami, these memories...they _did_ happen. About a week ago, reality was _altered_ somehow. No one else seems to have noticed, but you and me."

Ami made the mistake of looking over at Sakura's face. The girl looked unbelievably sad, but she was still trying to smile. Ami felt it must have been the memories' influence, but she couldn't bring herself to shake the hands off.

"So I'm not going crazy? All this weird stuff with you and that kid Isuru and that Rin lady, that really happened?"

Sakura nodded, "Yes. Until last week, that _was_ reality. Rin and I were attacked in the hospital, and when I woke up, I was _here._" Sakura glared at some imaginary adversary to her right. "I highly doubt at this point that it's a previously-known jutsu. Tsukuyomi doesn't seem to make sense, it's been way longer than three days, and there isn't any purpose to it."

"Wait, I didn't get these stupid memories until a few days ago." Ami snapped. S_ukuyo-what now?_

Sakura didn't acknowledge the anger in her tone, "I'm not sure why that is. Ami, I need you to try to remember, that night at the hospital, what happened?"

A hazy memory flipped into her head.

"Isuru and I, we were running towards you down the hallway, when we got close enough, things started blurring. Isuru was ahead of me, I think." Ami looked away from Sakura's focused gaze and shrugged, "I think I saw a room carved in stone, but that's all I remember."

Sakura sighed a little in disappointment, and Ami felt upset for a moment that her friend was worried before she remembered that Sakura was _not_ her friend.

"I don't know what to do Ami." The girl whispered, and Ami had the distinct impression that Sakura wasn't talking to her, but to that other Ami a world away.

"Good to know I'm not the only one." Ami jerked upright in shock at the new voice.

"Rin-sensei!?" Sakura's jaw dropped, and Ami turned around to see a brown-haired woman standing there.

Sakura laughed and ran past Ami to cling to the woman that she recognized from her memories as their teacher Rin.

"Sakura," The woman's eyes looked softly on the girl clutching her waist, she looked up and met Ami's eyes. "Ami," The serious gaze made Ami stiffen, "You'll have to forgive me for eavesdropping, but I needed to know whether or not you were the actual Sakura and Ami."

"You're real?!" Ami squeaked.

"Of course she's real Ami." Sakura muttered, stepping out of her hug, "She's our sensei."

"Ami."

Ami raised her chin in defiance, "What?"

"How much do you remember exactly?"

Ami rolled her eyes, "Not much. Just some stupid little things."

"I see." The woman narrowed her eyes, and Ami felt like she'd disappointed someone. "It would seem that while I retained my physical self from our…as you put it Sakura, previous reality, Ami clearly did not, and she didn't retain much of her mind either."

"I know I've got my mind." Sakura shrugged, "And I think I had the other Sakura's physical form when I first got here. But, sans clothing and accessories, I think I got my own body back after about a day."

Ami had stopped comprehending the conversation at some point, she was pretty sure it was around the "previous reality" part.

"That would explain why your tracking seal is still in place, and Ami's isn't. Neither is Isuru's I'm afraid." The woman paused for a moment, "I actually have all my items with me as well. It could indicate that where I was, was the center of the strange alteration, or possibly the eye of the storm."

"Everyone else was affected less and less the closer they were to the location you were at." Sakura observed.

"What?" Ami dropped the word without emotion.

The Rin woman just shook her head, "This isn't the place to discuss this." Suddenly, her head jerked up and she cast a glance towards the street.

"I'm being followed, we need to—" mid-sentence, Rin chucked a tri-pronged kunai on the ground. After an awkward moment or two or nothing happening, Rin muttered, "Darn it. He must still be unconscious." She sounded worried.

"Rin-sensei, who's unconscious?" Sakura asked.

"An ally we've recently acquired in all this mess." Rin gave the funky kunai a disappointed look. "I'd give this to you Sakura, but if you're caught with it..." The woman let her sentence trail off. "Look, both of you, stick together, look out for one another."

Rin shot Ami a meaningful glance, though Ami wasn't sure what meaning the glance was supposed to be full _of._

"Sensei, you're not leaving, are you?" Sakura wrung her hands anxiously.

"There isn't a choice. I can't take the two of you with me. I'm sorry but you would slow me down, and I'll need to move fast."

_I wouldn't _want_ to go with you anyway, crazy lady, _Ami scowled mentally,

"If I'm not back within an hour, assume I've been captured by the enemy." Rin shoved the kunai forcefully into her pocket, "Proceed with caution, work together, and remember what I've taught you and you'll be fine." Rin murmured as she ruffled Sakura's hair.

Then Ami found herself on the receiving end of Rin's worried stare, "Ami...just do your best. And get your memories back. Soon."

And then a whoosh of air and Rin was gone.

Ami had no trouble finding the conviction to turn to Sakura and announce, "Yah, I am _so_ not working with you."

**Author's Note: Hi!**

**...Okay, I really need to stop promising I'll explain things in the next chapter! XD Next time I swear! :D**

******Originally, Ami's flashbacks were going to be separated with symbols instead of narrated change-over. Hachi hashi was nice enough to read over that for me, and point out that it was insanely confusing. She also beta-ed that first section. Thank you! :D**

**Writing from Ami's perspective was a lot of fun. I don't get to write a lot of bratty characters who are in over their heads, so it was a nice change-up. Ami was only ever in like two episodes of the anime in Sakura's flashbacks, so it was tricky but enjoyable to try to imagine what she'd grow up to be like. :)**

**As always, I love getting your feedback, even if it's just a couple of words, it means a lot!**

**Have a wonderful day!**


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